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Kia ora (welcome) to this New Zealand-guided issue of BJSM, the journal I like to think of as BJSP—British Journal of Sports Physiotherapy—but don’t let the folks up north know that! In 2018 I was struck by the prominent voices pushing the biopsychosocial model of patient management. That model, as I recall it, started as a model for non-specific (chronic) low back pain but that approach is now being expounded as the way forward for all our musculoskeletal issues.
As a practitioner of 30 years I feel I have been using this model for many a year. I have treated every individual who walks in my door as a person with a specific problem. I have listened, and talked (in that order I hope), and used the set of skills that I honed over many years. Some patients’ problems were a bit more bio, some a bit more psycho, and some a bit more socially biased.
I have also used my diagnostic skills to develop a working diagnosis of the problem to help me and them understand the problem. This may not be an exact diagnosis, and in the process of treating them it may …