Introduction to the Special Issue: Advances in Psychogastroenterology
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Introduction to the Special Issue: Advances in Psychogastroenterology Andrea Bradford1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Digestive disease experts have long understood that psychological stress and emotional responses influence gut function (Almy & Tulin, 1947; Grace, Wolf, & Wolff, 1950). More recently, the relationship between brain and gut is understood to be bidirectional and mediated not only by neural substrates but also by the microbes hosted in the gut (Osadchiy, Martin, & Mayer, 2019). Psychological treatment of digestive diseases has evolved alongside knowledge of the brain-gut axis itself. The formal application of behavioral and psychophysiological principles to the management of digestive disorders dates to the development of biofeedback for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in the 1970s and the adaptation of several psychotherapy modalities during the 1980s. Despite these early advances, the integration of clinical psychologists in gastroenterology settings has not progressed at the pace seen in primary care or even in other medical specialties such as oncology and bariatrics. There are signals of a new level of cohesion within the field, however, including recent adoption of the term psychogastroenterology to describe “the application of psychological science and practice to gastrointestinal health and illness” (Knowles, Keefer, & Mikocka-Walus, 2020). In 2018, Drs. Laurie Keefer and Sarah Kinsinger founded a new psychology-focused section of the Rome Foundation, a professional society devoted to disorders of gut-brain interaction (formerly termed functional gastrointestinal disorders). As of this writing, 175 psychologists and other mental health professionals are listed as members of the Rome Foundation’s GastroPsych group (Rome Foundation, 2020). The recent publication of Psychogastroenterology for Adults: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals (Knowles et al.) is a landmark for the field, with coverage spanning multiple diseases and treatment paradigms. Although psychologists * Andrea Bradford [email protected] 1
Department of Medicine, Section of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, 7200 Cambridge Street Suite 8A, Houston, TX 77030, USA
are not new to gastroenterology settings, these recent initiatives suggest that they are finding one another and collaborating on a scale not previously seen. This special issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings represents another effort to bring together the collective expertise of professionals working at the interface of gastroenterology and clinical psychology. When I solicited submissions for this issue, I was unsure what to expect. My hope was to present a range of work in research and practice settings to demonstrate the adaptability of psychological science to new problems and unmet needs. Mindful of the silos that tend to spring up around new subfields, I also hoped that the call for papers woul
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