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Rivers of Research

Department of Psychiatry; Washington University School of Medicine; St. Louis, Missouri; freedlak{at}wustl.edu (Freedland)
Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine; University of Florida, Malcom Randall VA Medical Center; Gainesville, Florida (Sheps)

Psychosomatic Medicine's most loyal readers are medical and behavioral scientists and clinicians with an abiding interest in interactions between biology and behavior that contribute to medical illness or that help to prevent it. We know that this special issue on depression and heart disease will interest them, but we hope that it will also attract the attention of cardiologists and other physicians who seldom read anything published in this journal. Research on the relationship between depression and heart disease has important implications for clinical practice, not only for specialists in psychosomatic medicine but for other physicians as well.

If on entering this journal you find yourself in unfamiliar waters, we can assure you that it has a very rich history. Psychosomatic Medicine has been published since 1939 and is the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society, a thriving scientific organization that was founded in 1936. Originally, most of our readers and contributors were psychiatrists, particularly ones who specialized in psychosomatic medicine. Now, they share these pages with many other physicians and behavioral scientists.

Psychosomatic medicine recently gained formal approval as a psychiatric subspecialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties. However, Psychosomatic Medicine is not the official journal of this new subspecialty. That distinction belongs to Psychosomatics, the official journal of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine. Psychosomatic Medicine is anything but a subspecialty journal. It is truly multidisciplinary, because most of the findings we publish are products of inherently multidisciplinary research. No single discipline or medical specialty is capable of "going it alone" in investigating such complex questions as how depression increases the risk for mortality in coronary heart disease. Since "psychosomatic medicine" now refers to a specific psychiatric subspecialty, we will use the term biobehavioral medicine to refer to the multidisciplinary research enterprise that fills this journal with some of its best work.

St. Louis, Missouri has long been recognized as a leading center of biobehavioral research. Two large rivers run through it, inspiring reflection on how distant headwaters, widely separated from one another, are ultimately drawn together. St. Louis sits at the confluence of the Missouri and upper Mississippi Rivers, where 200 years ago Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery embarked on their epic journey. It is just south of Hannibal, the childhood home of Mark Twain, whose nom de plume was called out by the riverboat crews of his day during passages between safe and dangerous depths. It is just west of Springfield, Illinois, the home and burial place of Abraham Lincoln. When travel at long last resumed on the Mississippi River after the fall of Vicksburg in the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed that the "Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea." And St. Louis is where these two enormous rivers, fed by a vast network of tributaries, converge to form the lower Mississippi, one of the largest rivers on Earth.

Biobehavioral medicine also sits at the confluence of two large rivers, with headwaters that are as widely separated as are those of the Missouri and the Mississippi. One runs through biomedical journals, the other through behavioral journals. Those of us who inhabit the biobehavioral confluence between them often call them the "mainstream" journals. We are keenly aware that the wellsprings of our own multidisciplinary work lie upriver, in the mainstreams of biomedical and behavioral research. Yet when we travel upstream in search of inspiration, we find disciplines that are often unaware of each other's work, and unaware of ours.

Why should mainstream researchers and clinicians be aware of advances in biobehavioral medicine? Because biobehavioral medicine is more than the sum of the currents that feed it. Because some of the best biobehavioral research flows from collaborations with some of the best mainstream medical and behavioral scientists. And because biobehavioral research informs clinical practice in ways that raise the high water mark in patient care.

Psychosomatic Medicine is one of the best journals for mainstream researchers and clinicians who want to learn about the latest advances in biobehavioral medicine or who are seeking a high-impact outlet for their own biobehavioral research. If this is the first time you've drifted down to the confluence, don't worry about running intellectually aground. You might even find that the water is deeper here than back at your home port. And don't worry about getting lost along the way. This special supplement is a beacon on the shore.

DOI:10.1097/01.psy.0000166753.75513.95

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Freedland, K. E. Articles by Sheps, D. S. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Freedland, K. E. Articles by Sheps, D. S. Related Collections Depression