The end of the great illusion of reductionism in biology and medicine

We are experiencing a general crisis in the biomedical paradigm, which has dominated the last two centuries. In this paper, by analyzing the historical dynamics of the main biological disciplines, are identified paradigmatic causes of the crisis, and, at the same time, the trends in the formation of a new paradigm. The biomedical model embraces both reductionism the philosophic view that complex phenomena are ultimately derived from a single primary principle and dualism, the doctrine that separates the mental from the somatic. Psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology (PNEI) is an interdisciplinary field which considers the human organism as a structured and interconnected unity where the biological and psychological systems influence each other reciprocally. This vision is the base for new integrated approaches to the prevention and therapy and at the same time it delineates the possibility to go beyond the historical and philosophical opposition between mind and body as well as the opposition between medicine and psychology.