Historical background health psychology lecture

health psychology presentation

1. Health Psychology Chapter 1- Historical Background Miss Aisha Akhlaq

2. Learning outcomes Definition History and Scope of Psychology Perspectives and Models of Health Psychology

3. Introduction It is understood now that life style has a great impact on health and overall wellbeing of a person. Many of the health problems related to some serious illnesses such as cancer, heart disease etc are due to unhealthy behavior or lifestyle choices an individual makes ( e.g smoking or overeating).

4. What is Health? The perception of Health also has become changed as health is not just being away from diseases but it is overall positive well being. (Brannon & Feist, 2010).

5. What is Health psychology? Health psychology deals with the psychological and behavioral processes contributing to overall individual’s well being and health . Health psychology also called as behavioral medicine. Behavioral medicine is interdisciplinary field including both medicine and psychology.

6. It deals with the subject of health and illness by merging all knowledge of biological, behavioral , social and psychological sciences. Health psychology is basically applying the psychological theory to health related practices.

7. Definition • “Health psychology can be defined as the aggregate of the specific educational, scientific and professional contributions of the discipline of psychology to the promotion and maintenance of health, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the identification of etiologic and diagnostic correlates of health, illness and related dysfunction”. ( Matarazzo , 1980, p. 815 ) The scientific study of how psychological factors relate to the promotion and maintenance of health, and causation, prevention, and treatment of physical illnesses, as well as how people respond when they do get ill (Taylor, 1999) • Psychological factors: behaviors , emotions, beliefs, attitudes, personality, and stress etc Master of Behavioral Health Health Psychology Module Spring 2005

8. Modification in definition; as Health psychology “includes psychology’s contributions to • the enhancement of health, • the prevention and treatment of disease, • the identification of health risk factors, • improvement of the health care system, • and the shaping of public opinion with regard to health.” (Brannon & Feist, 2010, p. 13).

9. Historical Development   • Early cultures believed that Mind and body as a unit Illness believed to be caused by evil spirits Trephination Master of Behavioral Health Health Psychology Module Spring 2005

10. Ancient Greeks: • Hippocrates developed the humoral theory of illness; later elaborated by Galen • Disease caused by an imbalance of the four humors : blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm; humoral imbalance also have an impact on the mind • Treatment involved restoring balance among the humors • Mind and body as separate entities But Hippocrates did believe that health includes both physical and emotional aspects Master of Behavioral Health Health Psychology Module Spring 2005

11. Middle Ages: • Disease seen as God’s punishment for wrongdoing • Cure consisted of torturing the body to drive out the evil • The Renaissance and After: • Mind and body as separate entities to severe the ties between mysticism and disease – mind-body dualism • Development of microscopy, autopsy, antiseptic techniques and anesthesia

12. • Rejection of the humoral theory • Biomedical Model, for the next 300 years All disease or physical disorders can be explained by disturbances in physiological processes resulting from injury, biochemical imbalances, bacterial or viral infection and the like Master of Behavioral Health Health Psychology Module Spring 2005

13. Emergence of Health Psychology   Challenges to the biomedical model led to the development of: • Psychosomatic Medicine • Behavioral Health • Behavioral Medicine • Health Psychology Master of Behavioral Health Health Psychology Module Spring 2005

14. There are two dominant models in the health psychology The Biomedical Model - proposes biological problems as causes of illness and emphasizes illness and its causes over health and its causes. Mind –body dualism is implied and they are considered separate systems that don’t influence each other. The allopathic system is aligned with the biomedical model . The Biopsychosocial Model - acknowledges the role of social and psychological factors and their interaction with biological factors in influencing health or illness. This model emphasizes health as well as illness and is more aligned with the health promotion approach. The interactive relationship of the mind and body is espoused by this model (Taylor, 1995).

15. History of health psychology Two major perspectives ; One is biomedical tradition- a reductionist approach, claimed that disease is solely because of biological factors. Early attempts were not refined enough, for example discovery of the benefits of acupuncture, Hippocrates humoral theory of disease and treatment.

16. • Later, scientist developed the germ theory (diseases caused by microorganisms, proposed in the mid-16 century) by focusing on the structure and genes to define and understand illness and disease. • Limitation of this approach was that this tradition is full with somatic correlates.

17. Second Perspective • the psychosocial perspective; this perspective focused on the psychological and social factors of illness. 1940’s this wide phenomenon merged into one field called “psychosomatic medicine”.

18. • Psychosomatic medicine phenomenon is based on assumption that psychological factors can be the cause of some diseases. • Alexander, 1950 singled out some psychosomatic diseases such as peptic ulcers, essential hypertension and bronchial asthma. (Alexander, 1950 as cited in Trull , & Prinstein , 2012) .

19. • By the 1960’s there was a change in perspective as the research line demonstrated that how personality and behaviors cause the disease. For example smoking and overeating correlate to some major diseases. • During 1960’s due to increase in stressful events it was implicated that stressful life events are the risk factors for illness.

20. What Do Health Psychologists Do?   • Research • Practice • Individual and community levels • Prevention of physical illnesses and health promotion; treatment of and adjustment to physical illnesses Master of Behavioral Health Health Psychology Module Spring 2005

21. The Scope of Health Psychology(Marks et al,2008) Although health psychology developed relatively recently as a formal sub discipline, there are four sub areas into which it could be categorized on the basis of scale or unit of analyses. Clinical Health Psychology is focused on the individual whereas public and community health psychology focus on larger groups and critical health psychology focuses on macro structural factors. Clinical Health Psychology – Seeks to understand health outcomes and the quality of life from a psychological perspective. An example of the work in this area would be understanding the impact of stress on blood pressure or developing an intervention for smoking cessation and running randomized controlled trials. It is the most well established of the four approaches and the most rigorous in terms of methodology.

22. Public Health Psychology - Is concerned with the general population especially vulnerable groups and health policy and how it gets translated and its impact on health outcomes – evaluates its impact. It is multidisciplinary and draws from epidemiology as well as psychology. The typical methods are large scale surveys. Community Health Psychology – The focus is on social change and the research methods are participative research and action research. The link between the community and individuals is emphasized and the aim is to improve or develop the community. Critical Health Psychology – Is concerned with larger influences such as power, economics and social institutions on health and health care. It aims to analyze the assumptions and discourse in the field of health of researchers and health professionals and policy makers.