Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Setting out: using this book
- 1 Locating the field: introducing health psychology
- 2 Thinking about health and the body
- 3 Choosing lifestyles
- 4 Controlling the body
- 5 Becoming ill
- 6 Comprehending bodily experience
- 7 Interacting with health professionals
- 8 Treating illness
- 9 Being ill
- 10 Dying
- 11 Relocating the field: critical health psychology
- Glossary
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
- References
1 - Locating the field: introducing health psychology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Setting out: using this book
- 1 Locating the field: introducing health psychology
- 2 Thinking about health and the body
- 3 Choosing lifestyles
- 4 Controlling the body
- 5 Becoming ill
- 6 Comprehending bodily experience
- 7 Interacting with health professionals
- 8 Treating illness
- 9 Being ill
- 10 Dying
- 11 Relocating the field: critical health psychology
- Glossary
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
- References
Summary
I hope I have convinced you of some simple but far-reaching truths. That our mental state and physical health are inexorably intertwined. That stress, depression and other psychological factors can alter our vulnerability to many diseases, including bacterial and viral infections, heart disease and cancer. That the relationship between mind and health is mediated both by our behaviour and by biological connections between the brain and immune system. That these connections work in both directions, so our physical health can influence our mental state. That all illnesses have psychological and emotional consequences as well as causes. That there is nothing shameful or weak about the intrusion of thoughts and emotions into illness. That our social relationships with other people are central to health. That our dualist habit of contrasting mind and body, as though they were two fundamentally different entities, is deeply misleading.
(Martin, 1997, p. 314)The psychology of health, illness and health care needs to be considered in economic, political, ecological, social and cultural context.
(Marks et al., 2000, p. 1)Learning objectives
This chapter will provide an introduction to health psychology and locate studies of health and illness within their sociohistorical context. By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
provide a brief historical overview of dominant Western views on health and disease;
outline the historical development of psychological approaches to health and illness, and health psychology in particular;
define and explain the biomedical and biopsychosocial models of health and illness;
describe what health psychology covers as a field of study;
[…]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Health PsychologyA Critical Introduction, pp. 5 - 39Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006