Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Psychology, health and illness
- Adolescent lifestyle
- Age and physical functioning
- Age and cognitive functioning
- Ageing and health
- Architecture and health
- Attributions and health
- Childhood influences on health
- Children's perceptions of illness and death
- Coping with bereavement
- Coping with chronic illness
- Coping with chronic pain
- Coping with death and dying
- Coping with stressful medical procedures
- Cultural and ethnic factors in health
- Delay in seeking help
- Diet and health
- Disability
- Emotional expression and health
- Expectations and health
- Gender issues and women's health
- The health belief model
- Health-related behaviours: common factors
- Hospitalization in adults
- Hospitalization in children
- Hostility and Type A behaviour in coronary artery disease
- Lay beliefs about health and illness
- Life events and health
- Men's health
- Noise: effects on health
- Pain: a multidimensional perspective
- Perceived control
- Personality and health
- Physical activity and health
- Placebos
- Psychoneuroimmunology
- Psychosomatics
- Quality of life
- Religion and health
- Risk perception and health behaviour
- Self-efficacy in health functioning
- Sexual risk behaviour
- Sleep and health
- Social support and health
- Socioeconomic status and health
- Stigma
- Stress and health
- Symptom perception
- Theory of planned behaviour
- Transtheoretical model of behaviour change
- Unemployment and health
- Brain imaging and function
- Communication assessment
- Coping assessment
- Diagnostic interviews and clinical practice
- Disability assessment
- Health cognition assessment
- Health status assessment
- Illness cognition assessment
- IQ testing
- Assessment of mood
- Neuropsychological assessment
- Neuropsychological assessment of attention and executive functioning
- Neuropsychological assessment of learning and memory
- Pain assessment
- Patient satisfaction assessment
- Psychoneuroimmunology assessments
- Qualitative assessment
- Quality of life assessment
- Social support assessment
- Stress assessment
- Behaviour therapy
- Biofeedback
- Cognitive behaviour therapy
- Community-based interventions
- Counselling
- Group therapy
- Health promotion
- Hypnosis
- Motivational interviewing
- Neuropsychological rehabilitation
- Pain management
- Physical activity interventions
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- Psychosocial care of the elderly
- Relaxation training
- Self-management interventions
- Social support interventions
- Stress management
- Worksite interventions
- Adherence to treatment
- Attitudes of health professionals
- Breaking bad news
- Burnout in health professionals
- Communicating risk
- Healthcare professional–patient communication
- Healthcare work environments
- Informed consent
- Interprofessional education in essence
- Medical decision-making
- Medical interviewing
- Patient-centred healthcare
- Patient safety and iatrogenesis
- Patient satisfaction
- Psychological support for healthcare professionals
- Reassurance
- Screening in healthcare: general issues
- Shiftwork and health
- Stress in health professionals
- Surgery
- Teaching communication skills
- Written communication
- Medical topics
- Index
- References
Emotional expression and health
from Psychology, health and illness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Psychology, health and illness
- Adolescent lifestyle
- Age and physical functioning
- Age and cognitive functioning
- Ageing and health
- Architecture and health
- Attributions and health
- Childhood influences on health
- Children's perceptions of illness and death
- Coping with bereavement
- Coping with chronic illness
- Coping with chronic pain
- Coping with death and dying
- Coping with stressful medical procedures
- Cultural and ethnic factors in health
- Delay in seeking help
- Diet and health
- Disability
- Emotional expression and health
- Expectations and health
- Gender issues and women's health
- The health belief model
- Health-related behaviours: common factors
- Hospitalization in adults
- Hospitalization in children
- Hostility and Type A behaviour in coronary artery disease
- Lay beliefs about health and illness
- Life events and health
- Men's health
- Noise: effects on health
- Pain: a multidimensional perspective
- Perceived control
- Personality and health
- Physical activity and health
- Placebos
- Psychoneuroimmunology
- Psychosomatics
- Quality of life
- Religion and health
- Risk perception and health behaviour
- Self-efficacy in health functioning
- Sexual risk behaviour
- Sleep and health
- Social support and health
- Socioeconomic status and health
- Stigma
- Stress and health
- Symptom perception
- Theory of planned behaviour
- Transtheoretical model of behaviour change
- Unemployment and health
- Brain imaging and function
- Communication assessment
- Coping assessment
- Diagnostic interviews and clinical practice
- Disability assessment
- Health cognition assessment
- Health status assessment
- Illness cognition assessment
- IQ testing
- Assessment of mood
- Neuropsychological assessment
- Neuropsychological assessment of attention and executive functioning
- Neuropsychological assessment of learning and memory
- Pain assessment
- Patient satisfaction assessment
- Psychoneuroimmunology assessments
- Qualitative assessment
- Quality of life assessment
- Social support assessment
- Stress assessment
- Behaviour therapy
- Biofeedback
- Cognitive behaviour therapy
- Community-based interventions
- Counselling
- Group therapy
- Health promotion
- Hypnosis
- Motivational interviewing
- Neuropsychological rehabilitation
- Pain management
- Physical activity interventions
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- Psychosocial care of the elderly
- Relaxation training
- Self-management interventions
- Social support interventions
- Stress management
- Worksite interventions
- Adherence to treatment
- Attitudes of health professionals
- Breaking bad news
- Burnout in health professionals
- Communicating risk
- Healthcare professional–patient communication
- Healthcare work environments
- Informed consent
- Interprofessional education in essence
- Medical decision-making
- Medical interviewing
- Patient-centred healthcare
- Patient safety and iatrogenesis
- Patient satisfaction
- Psychological support for healthcare professionals
- Reassurance
- Screening in healthcare: general issues
- Shiftwork and health
- Stress in health professionals
- Surgery
- Teaching communication skills
- Written communication
- Medical topics
- Index
- References
Summary
A longstanding puzzle within psychology and psychosomatic medicine concerns the relationship between the expression of emotions and physical health. Descartes and Shakespeare suggested that not expressing powerful emotions could be unhealthy. Similarly, William James (1890) and Franz Alexander (1950) forcefully argued that inhibiting the expression of strong emotions over time could result in physical health problems through basic biological stress-related channels (see ‘Psychoneuroimmunology’ and ‘Psychosomatics’). Despite these early hypotheses, there is still no overwhelming evidence to support the idea that the suppression of emotional expression is unhealthy and, conversely, that the open expression of emotions is beneficial.
Emotional expression has been viewed by our culture somewhat ambivalently. On the one hand, emotional expression is often viewed as rather uncivilized, as ‘giving in’ to passion (King & Emmons, 1990, p. 864). On the other hand, it is assumed that emotions usually should be let out, that the healthy end to an emotional response is emotional expression. This view is especially common in the psychological literature. From Breuer and Freud (1895/1966) to the present (e.g. Cole et al., 1996; Pelletier, 1985) the inherent value of naturally expressing one's thoughts and feelings has been emphasized. Emotional expression is thus viewed as a somewhat unseemly but normal part of everyday life.
While emotional expression is a normative behaviour which is neither good nor bad per se, actively holding back emotion through inhibition may have negative health consequences.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 84 - 87Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
References
- 7
- Cited by