Bioenergy Economy-based Health Improvement (BEHI) is an integrative, evidence-based care approach designed to promote health and the sustainable development of happiness. Instead of focusing on pathogenesis and treatment, this psychosomatic health program emphasizes salutogenesis and the consciousness evolution.Goli, F. (2025). "Pleasure, Power, Meaning, and Beyond: Towards a Biosemiotic Model of Wellbeing". International Journal of Body, Mind, and Culture. Retrieved from https://ijbmc.org.Farzanegan, M., & Rabiei, K. (2025). The economy of health and meaning: A case study of implementing BEHI as a biosemiotic and salutogenic model of care. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 14(1), 305. The name is derived from the ancient and common Persian word behi, meaning "to become better" or "to be better". Bioenergy Economy-based Health Improvement focuses on the timeliness and alignment of psychophysical energy investments to maximize functionality and fulfillment. This health-oriented method promotes the expansion of bodily awareness and mind-body integration by exploring the coordination of physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral energy investments in every physical, symbolic, and interpersonal context.
Introduction This systems-thinking approach was first introduced as "Bioenergy Economy" by Farzad Goli—a researcher, author, and medical psychotherapist—with an initial emphasis on its biophysical and integrative aspects.Goli, F. (2010). Bioenergy economy: a methodological study on bioenergy-based therapies. Xlibris Corporation. Following clinical and educational research, this consciousness-based, salutogenic method was gradually renamed BEHI and developed into a transdiagnostic, evidence-based care system.
The BEHI model integrates body-centered, psychodynamic, existential, and consciousness-based psychological approaches within a biosemiotic framework, establishing the embodied mind and the conscious body as the foundation for understanding life and healthcare.Goli, F. (2016). Biosemiotic medicine. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. The model also utilizes the free energy principle, introduced by Karl Friston, as the basis for its economic model.Friston, K. J. (2010). "The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory?". Nature Reviews Neuroscience. From this perspective, the human body is viewed as a complex network of meaning-making systems in which mutual information flows in the form of material, energetic, symbolic, and reflective signs.Schmidt, S., & Walach, H. (2016). Making sense in the medical system: placebo, biosemiotics, and the pseudomachine. In Biosemiotic medicine: Healing in the world of meaning (pp. 195-215). Cham: Springer International Publishing. The Bioenergy Economy-based Health Improvement approach focuses on minimizing the level of free energy and resulting psychosomatic conditions through mindful contextual changes in the body, narrative, relationship, and intention.
Main concepts The BEHI approach focuses on directing energy-information across four fields of the bioenergy economy. In each of the following four fields, bodily awareness exercises, cognitive behavioral interventions, and interpersonal skills are applied:
Body Economy: Releasing dysfunctional muscular tensions and developing body awareness by enhancing coordination in the interoceptive, proprioceptive, and exteroceptive systems. Narrative Economy: Organizing the flow of energy-information in autobiographical memory using techniques such as attentional flexibility, bioenergetic reprocessing, and centering in the body, and non-dualistic narrative. Relation Economy: Regulating interpersonal energy investments and facilitating synergy by developing intercorporeal awareness, mindful control of distance, angle, and proportion, and using nonviolent communication. Intention Economy: Harmonizing will and desire by developing nonlocal body awareness, willing with wholeness, and aligning bodily, symbolic, and relational energy investments.
Levels of bioenergy economy From the BEHI perspective, our energy investments to meet needs and achieve greater happiness and satisfaction are possible on four levels of the bioenergy economy. Bioenergy Economy-based Health Improvement focuses on developing the capacities of body awareness and cognitive-behavioral skills to guide energy-information from the more limited Releasing and Cumulative levels to the higher and more sustainable Proactive and Agapistic levels. In this psychosomatic approach, the Releasing and Cumulative levels are respectively equivalent to Freud's pleasure principle and reality principle.Freud, S. (1920). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The Active level is equivalent to Viktor Frankl's concept of freedom of meaning-makingFrankl, V. E. (2014). The will to meaning: Foundations and applications of logotherapy. Penguin. and Abraham Maslow's notion of self-actualization.Maslow, A. (1965). Self-actualization and beyond. The Agapistic level refers to agapism in Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory —the evolutionary force that the whole exerts on its parts—and is equivalent to the transpersonal self of consciousness in transpersonal psychology.Vaughan, F. (1985). Discovering transpersonal identity. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 25(3), 13-38. In the BEHI model, all these levels of values and methods of energy investment for fulfillment are explained by a single organismic value: hedonism. In Bioenergy Economy-based Health Improvement, this drive is used in an extended sense. It implies emergent properties at each level of human organization, progressing from earlier (Releasing) and more (Cumulative) pleasure to more sustainable (Protective) and unconditional (Agapistic) pleasure.
The levels of the bioenergy economy can be summarized as follows:
Releasing Level (will-to-pleasure): Focuses on the immediate release of tensions and sooner pleasure. Cumulative Level (will-to-power): Delays immediate pleasures to achieve long-term satisfaction and more pleasure over time. Proactive Level (will-to-meaning): Creates new resources and meanings for sustainable pleasure by autogenic synthesis of pleasure. Agapistic Level (will-to-being): Achieves unconditional happiness through the expansion of the self and a non-dual identity.
Effectiveness Clinical and experimental studies have shown that BEHI is efficacious in improving mood Derakhshan, A., Manshaei, G., Afshar, H., & Goli, F. (2016). Effect of a bioenergy economy program on pain control, depression, and anxiety in patients with migraine headache. International Journal of Body, Mind and Culture, 3(1), 30-45.Tavakolizadeh, J., Goli, F., & Ebrahimi, A. (2021). "Effectiveness of a Bioenergy Economy-Based Psychoeducation Package on Improvement of Vegetative Function, Forgiveness, and Quality of Life of Patients with Coronary Heart Disease: A Randomized Clinical Trial". International Journal of Body, Mind, and Culture. Retrieved from https://ijbmc.org. and reducing anxiety.Keyvanipour, M., Goli, F., Bigdeli, I., Boroumand, A., Rafieinia, P., & Sabahi, P. (2019). The effects of a bioenergy economy-based program on attention bias modification in people with high anxiety sensitivity. International Clinical Neuroscience Journal, 6(4), 133-139. It has demonstrated therapeutic effects for disorders such as migraine, myofascial pain,Goli, F., Yekta, R., Scheidt, C. E., Boroumand, A., Fard, R. J., Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, M., ... & Khabazkhoob, M. (2019). Effect of a bioenergy economy program on the Severity of Symptoms and Quality of Life in Patients with Myofascial Pain Syndrome. Acta Medica Iranica, 598-604. irritable bowel syndrome,Farzanegan M., Azizi, A., Fard, S. S., Sadeghi, A., Arefi, M., Badi, H. S., Adibi, P., Daghaghzadeh, H., & Zanjani, H. A. (2025). Effectiveness of a bioenergy economy program versus mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on the severity and psychological symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 14, 107. https://doi.org/10.4103/jehp.jehp_1924_23 and inflammatory bowel disease.Goli, F., Derakhshanjan, A., Jahanzad, S., Haghayegh, S. A., Zanjani, H. A., & Adibi, P. (2025). Effectiveness of Bioenergy Economy-based Health Improvement (BEHI) versus Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on the Psychological Comorbidities and Quality of Life in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Crohn's & Colitis 360, 7(2), otaf018. It has also been shown to be effective in the rehabilitation of patients with breast cancerFarzanegan M., Derakhshan, A., Hashemi-Jazi, M. S., Hemmati, S., & Azizi, A. (2022). The Effect of a Bioenergy Economy-Based Program on the Well-being of Patients with Breast Cancer. International Journal of Body, Mind & Culture (2345-5802), 9. and in the rehabilitation of those recovering from cardiac and respiratory conditions.Bavari, F., Roohafza, H., Farzanegan, M., Hashemi, M., Dorostkar, N., Khosravi, E., ... & Sadeghi, M. (2022). The Effect of Bioenergy Economy on Cardiac Function and Inflammatory Factors in Myocardial Infarction: A Randomized Controlled Trial. International Journal of Body, Mind & Culture (2345-5802), 9(2). Furthermore, this psychosomatic health program has been successful in promoting weight loss in people with overweight and obesity,Ghassemi, Z., Vahedi, S., Tabatabaei, S. M., & Alivandi Vafa, M. (2021). Effectiveness of Bioenergy Economy Intervention on Self-Compassion, Self-Efficacy, and Weight Loss Iranian Journal of Health Psychology, 4(4), 27-46. improving employee distress and quality of life.Bahreini, F., Azizi, A., & Roohafza, H. (2024). Effectiveness of Bioenergy Economy-based Health Improvement versus Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction on the Occupational Stress and Psychosomatic Symptoms of Distressed Employees?. International Journal of Body, Mind & Culture (2345-5802), 11(2). and enhancing educational performance.Ahangar Ahmadi, S., Henning, J.E., & Goli, F. (2017). Journal of Counseling and Professional Psychology.
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