Q&A with Tara Gruenewald on SBSM Name Change

An interview with Pete Gianaros, PhD, immediate Past President, and Tara Gruenewald, PhD, MPH, President, of the Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine. 

The Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine (SBSM), formerly the American Psychosomatic Society (APS), was founded in 1942.  Over the last eight decades, the Society has provided a home for the dissemination of biopsychosocial science and its application to health and health care.  Earlier this year, Society members cast a historic vote to change the name of the organization.  This effort was led by then President, Pete Gianaros, with the support of Society officers and leaders, and the participation of the membership. 

What inspired SBSM to change its name? 

 Without question, it was our members who inspired the change. For those not familiar with our Society, we have always been a community for scientists and clinicians who are interested in how mind-body interactions shape health and disease vulnerability. Although our interests have never changed, the Society has in fact considered changing its name on several occasions in its long history. These have largely been driven by the evolution and expansion of our science and our clinical impact. Just a few years after the Society was founded, for example, its name was changed from the American Society for Research on Psychosomatic Problems to the broader, American Psychosomatic Society. And as the diversity of the disciplines and topics of study represented in the Society and its flagship journal (soon to be Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine from the current Psychosomatic Medicine) began widening in the 1960’s, our members have increasingly voiced perspectives and calls for more inclusive names—ones that reflect our internationality, our social consciousness, and our mechanistic and translational focus on the interacting biological, psychological, social, behavioral, and environmental processes that contribute to human health and disease across the lifespan. Importantly, we are also a Society that emphasizes the application of our work in clinical and public health contexts to promote health, as well as to prevent, manage, and treat disease. 

To answer our members’ calls, our governing Council extensively surveyed members and engaged with its constituent groups and committees over a year-long period in 2023. Through this process, it became clear from member input that the title that best reflected our organization was SBSM. At the same time, it became clear that the title best reflecting our Journal and its trajectory of impact was Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine. Support among the members who voted for these unprecedented and historic changes to the names of the Society and Journal ranged from 90-95 percent! 

So, the inspirations for these name changes were most certainly our members and their voices. 

How challenging was it to reach an agreement on the new name? What was your process for reaching the decision? 

 In several ways, it was quite challenging. One of the primary challenges was to approach the process in a way that was mindful of the rich history and heritage of the Society and Journal’s names, which have been in place for over 80 years. A second challenge was to proceed deliberately and slowly without alienating our members. This was achieved by taking several inclusive and transparent steps. For example, we administered surveys, held one-on-one meetings with past and current leaders, considered qualitative input from members across the world and across the career-span, gave agency to committees and special interest groups to caucus among themselves without our interference, invited executive summaries from every group in the Society, and offered informational summaries to members as the process unfolded. These steps, of course, led to a third challenge of synthesizing all of the information gathered from members over a year so that they could make an informed vote. After deliberating for over a month and over the course a strategic planning meeting, our governing Council created a webinar for the Society’s members. This webinar provided a detailed summary of prior name-change initiatives that unfolded in the history of the Society, as well as all factors, principles, and considerations that led to presenting SBSM and Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine (BSM) as new potential names for member-wide voting. We believe that the challenges we faced in the process were met by adopting inclusive and transparent postures. 

The process for reaching the final decision came down to members and their votes of support. Our Bylaws require at least a two-thirds majority vote on any changes that affect the Society or its Journal. That our members voted with 90-95 percent support for change is a testament to the excitement for SBSM and its future. 

What do you hope people will understand about the society when they hear the new name? 

We hope that people will understand that we are an interdisciplinary scientific Society focused on the study of the interplay between biological, psychological, social, behavioral and environmental factors that impact human health and disease across the lifespan. We are also a Society comprised not just of scientists, but also clinicians and those working in public health and medicine. We hope that people seeking to learn more about us will read a forthcoming paper that we prepared for the inaugural issue of Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine. It will appear in January 2025 issue and it’s entitled, Towards a Second Social Movement in Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine. We describe the historical context and reasons for these major changes to our Society and Journal. Moving forward, we hope that people will clearly understand our mission, which is to advance biopsychosocial science and its application for health. This mission is the driving force of our annual meeting and our Journal, which remain premier homes for mechanistic and translational research that has the potential for clinical and public health impact. 

Thank you for interviewing us! We encourage people to visit our website to learn more about us: https://thesbsm.org/