Meaning of Health Psychology

 

Definition of Health Psychology

          According to Joseph Matarazzo (1980), “Health psychology is 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, the identification of aetiologic diagnostic correlates of health, illness and related dysfunction and to the analysis and improvement of health care system and health policy formation”.  This is a comprehensive definition and accepted across the board.

Introduction-cum-Meaning

          Health psychology became an independent field of study in 1978. This branch focuses on the role of psychological factors in the development, prevention and treatment of illness. It studies the psychological and behavioural processes in health & illness and concerned with understanding how psychological, behavioural, and cultural factors contribute to physical health. The scope of this includes studying stress and coping, the relationship between psychological factors and health, patient-doctor-relationship and ways of promoting health enhancing factors etc. The major focus of health psychology is understanding the physical illness from the perspective of psychological principles and theories. This is an interdisciplinary field which comes under the umbrella of applied psychology.

          Health psychology undertakes a bio-psycho-social approach to understand health. This branch assumes that health is not the outcome of only biological processes (e.g., a virus, tumour, etc.) but also of psychological (e.g., thoughts and beliefs), behavioural (e.g. habits), and social processes (e.g., socioeconomic status and ethnicity) (Ogden, 2012).

          According to Carlson et al. “Health psychology is the branch of psychology that applies psychological principles to the understanding of health and illness”.

Subfields of health psychology are: -

1.       Clinical Health Psychology,

2.       Public Health Psychology,

3.       Community Health Psychology, and

4.       Critical Health Psychology.

1.      Clinical Health Psychology (CHP) – It is the application of scientific knowledge, derived from the field of health psychology to clinical problems. Clinical practice includes education, the techniques of behaviour change, and psychotherapy.

2.      Public Health Psychology (PHP) – It is population oriented and its aim is to investigate potential causal links between psychosocial factors and health at the population level in order to promote better public health.

3.      Community Health Psychology (CoHP) – This subfield investigates community factors that contribute to the health and well-being of individuals who live in communities and also develops community-level interventions that are designed to combat disease and promote

physical and mental health.

4.      Critical Health Psychology (CrHP) – It is concerned with the distribution of power and the impact of power differentials on health experience and behavior, health care systems, and health policy. CrHP prioritizes social justice and the universal right to health for people of all races, genders, ages, and socioeconomic positions. A major concern of CrHP is health inequalities. (wikipedia.com).

 

References:

1.       Ogden, J. (2012). Health Psychology: A Textbook (5th ed.). Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.

2.       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_psychology#cite_noteOgden,_ J._2012-2.

 

 

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