Chapter 1: What is Health Psychology?

What is Health Psychology?

How psychological factors influence staying healthy, becoming ill, responding to illness

What do Health Psychologists emphasize?

• Promoting and Maintaining Health

• Preventing and Treating Illness

• Understanding Causes and Correlates of Health & Illness

• Improving the Healthcare System and Shaping Health Policies

What is the modern view of Health?

The ability to adapt, respond to, or control life’s challenges and changes

What is WHO’s definition of Health?

A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being— not merely the absence of disease of infirmity

What is the goal of the Health Promotion Model?

To improve individual and community health through social policy and action

What are the 4 main functions of WHO?

1. Provide global health guidance

2. Set international health standards

3. Support national health programs

4. Develop and share health technologies and information

What is the Early History view on M-B Relationships?

Mind and body were seen as one

What is the Greek Era view on M-B Relationships?

Humoral theory emerged, illness was seen as an imbalance of humors

What is the Humoral Theory?

4 body fluids determine health and personality

Blood (Sanguine) — cheerful, social

Black Bile (Melancholic) — thoughtful, moody

Yellow Bile (Choleric) — ambitious, irritable

Phlegm (Phlegmatic) — calm, reliable

What was the M-B Relationship in the Middle Ages?

Religion dominated medicine, priests were the healers instead of doctors

Illness was seen as a punishment from supernatural forces related to religious beliefs

What was the M-B Relationship in the Renaissance?

Rise of science with microscopes and autopsies

Mind Body Dualism

What is Mind Body Dualism?

The mind is immaterial and the body is material. Both are separate from each other

What is Freud’s Conversion Hysteria?

When psychological conflicts cause physical symptoms

What is Psychosomatic Medicine?

How psychological and social factors can influence physical health and illness and vice versa

Illnesses like ulcers were linked to personality traits

Behavioural Medicine

Combines behavioural and medical science to treat and prevent disease

What is the current view on M-B Relationships?

Health is shaped by biological, psychological, and social factors with an emphasis on lifestyle, self-care, and social/environmental conditions

What is Mind-Body Relationship? (M-B Relationship)

How the mind and body interact or do not interact and how they relate to health

What is the Biopsychosocial Model of Health?

Health is an outcome of biological, psychological, and social factors and rejects the divide of mind-body

Health is actively achieved through balance across all 3 areas

What interactions define the Biopsychosocial Model?

Interactions of biological (genes, chemical imbalances), psychological (behaviours, emotions), social (relationships, cultural norms)

Micro-Macro interactions — depression, support systems to cellular changes, immune response

What is the Systems Theory in the Biopsychosocial Model?

All levels of health are interlinked and changes in one level affect the others

What are the clinical implications of the Biopsychosocial Model?

• diagnosis must consider all 3 factors

• allows for personalized, team based treatment

• improves practitioner-patient relationship

• increases treatment adherence and effectiveness

What is the Biomedical Model of Health?

Views illness as purely biological, no psychological or social factors considered.

Mind-Body Dualism, reduces disease to physical causes, single cause, focus on illness not health

How does Health Psychology help chronic illnesses?

With chronic illnesses becoming primary in comparison to acute illnesses, since they are long-term it can assist in adapting to new health realities, issues tied to causes and coping

What is the importance of Health Psychology with the advances of technology & research?

Psychological expertise is key when analyzing and interpreting behavioural changes related to gene discovery and risk factor analysis

What is Epidemiology?

The study of disease patterns in population

What does Morbidity mean?

The presence of disease, incidence = new case and prevalence = total cases

What does Mortality mean?

The death rates

How does Health Psychology impact the Healthcare System?

• Reducing cost by aiding with illness prevention

  • Research improves system design & satisfaction

How are psychology and the medical field related and interact with each other?

Psychological interventions have been of value, help with pain management, habit change & treatment compliance

Health and Illness are always influenced by mental and social states