section_path: Social scientific models/Biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual
section_name: Biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual
paragraph_text: Biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual
  
  While regarded biomedically as a neuropsychological disorder, addiction is multi-layered, with biological, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual (biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual) elements. A biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual approach fosters the crossing of disciplinary boundaries, and promotes holistic considerations of addiction. A biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual approach considers, for example, how physical environments influence experiences, habits, and patterns of addiction.
  
  Ethnographic engagements and developments in fields of knowledge have contributed to biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual understandings of addiction, including the work of Philippe Bourgois, whose fieldwork with street-level drug dealers in East Harlem highlights correlations between drug use and structural oppression in the United States. Prior models that have informed the prevailing biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual consideration of addiction include: