Behavioral sleep medicine - An emerging subspecialty in health psychology and sleep medicine

As the knowledge base in sleep disorders medicine has broadened, a subspeci alty that we will refer to as "behavioral sleep medicine" area is emerging. This article will define this subspecialty area, provide some historical c ontext for its emergence, review issues related to specialty training and c linical practice, and suggest needs for future research. The term "behavior al sleep medicine" was selected because it clearly denoted the two fields f rom which our subspecialty emerged (health psychology/behavioral medicine a nd sleep disorders medicine). It suggests much about our approach to traini ng, clinical practice, and research, and it appropriately implies that the field is open to PhD sleep specialists, MD sleep specialists, and other hea lth care providers with the relevant training. Formally, behavioral sleep m edicine refers to the branch of clinical sleep medicine and health psycholo gy that: (1) focuses on the identification of the psychological (e.g. cogni tive and/or behavioral) factors that contribute to the development and/or m aintenance of sleep disorders and (2) specializes in developing and providi ng empirically validated cognitive, behavioral, and/or other nonpharmacolog ic interventions for the entire spectrum of sleep disorders. (C) 2000 Elsev ier Science Inc. All rights reserved.