ABSTRACT
Behavioral medicine represents an area of scientific inquiry arising from this synthesis of the joint clinical and research efforts of behavioral and medical scientists. While philosophically a merger of methodologies seems warranted, it is only within the past decade that behavioral medicine has become a formal discipline of research and clinical practice. A brief review of the developments in behavioral psychology and medicine which have led to the adoption of more complex, mutifactorial explanatory models, will provide a historical context for understanding the current focus of research and clinical practice in behavioral medicine. Medicine, like psychology, developed into a science around the turn of the twentieth century, and is also facing the challenge of developing new, more comprehensive theoretical models in its efforts to understand better the process of health and disease. Research of gastrointestinal functioning in humans clearly illustrates the evolution of thinking in behavioral medicine.
