Psych Midterm 1
Health psychology: understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why
people become ill, and how they respond when they do get ill
Health: state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of ‐
disease or infirmity” (1948)
Health Psych roles:
- the educational, scientific and professional contributions of psychology to the
promotion and maintenance of health
- prevent & treat illness
- identification of cause and correlation of health & illness
- improvement of health care system & formulation of health policy
Mind-body relationship: psychanalytic FREUDS CONVERSION HYSTERIA
- unconscious conflicts produce physical disturbances that symbolize the repressed
psychological conflicts
- patient converts conflict into a nervous system disturbance and becomes relatively free
of anxiety
Psychosomatic medicine: dunbar & alexander
- profiles of disorders thought to be psychosomatic in origin (e.g., anxiety and stress
causing ulcers)
- helped shape belief that bodily disorders are caused by emotional conflicts
- criticized that a particular conflict or personality style is not sufficient to produce illness
Behaviour medicine:
- connections between body & mind
- Interdisciplinary field concerned with integrating behavioural science & biomedical
science for understanding physical health and illness and to prevent, diagnose, treat,
and rehabilitate
Biomed vs biopsychosocial med:
-Biomedical model: All illness can be explained
on the basis of aberrant somatic bodily
processes; psychological and social processes
are irrelevant to disease process.
-Biopsychosocial model: Health and illness are
consequences of the interplay of biological,
psychological and social factors.
