Takaharu Goto and his colleagues found the biopsychosocial model effective for assessing ikigai. Biopsychosocial is an approach that systematically considers the interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors in understanding health and well-being.
Biopsychosocial: a holistic approach
Nick: So let's touch on the title of your paper, Biopsychosocial Consideration of Ikigai in Older Adults in Japan through a Cross-Sectional Study. I think it might be helpful to define biopsychosocial.
Takaharu: This approach systematically considers bio biological, psychological, and social factors and their complex interactions in understanding health, illness, and healthcare delivery.
In recent years, the medical field has used this biopsychosocial model, instead of traditional reductionist mystics biomedical model, to assess the relationship between a patient's biological, psychological, and social factors and the degree to which these factors influence a person's symptoms.
We have found this approach to be very useful in assessing ikigai as it relates to a variety of factors.
Nick: Yeah, so that's interesting. It's a very holistic approach. And I guess, ikigai is this holistic approach to life, or what makes life worth living.
Takaharu: Exactly, yes.
Nick: I think in medicine, you tend to isolate people's health in certain areas. I guess, with time we've realized that we have to look at the whole health—the biology and the psychology and the social factors of someone's life. So I think this makes sense. And so, in the context of this study, how did you define ikigai?
Takaharu: In this study, we define that ikigai can be explained by physical, psychological, or social components. We don't know which is the primary one, but we believe that there is a fundamental state of fulfillment in which the components are fulfilled; and then the elemental fulfillment and the sense of missions are built on top of that, and ikigai is obtained.
Nick: Yeah, this is really interesting for me, after studying ikigai for five years now, I knew social, the social aspect of ikigai is very important. And then obviously, the psychological. I would almost frame ikigai as positive psychology, like Japan's version of positive psychology.
And I guess, to have a fulfilling life, we need to be active and healthy, so we need this physical aspect of health. So it's another interesting framework to understand ikigai—our physical health, our psychological health, and our social health.