The Self-healing Personality - Softcover

Friedman Ph.D., Howard S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452267579 ISBN 13: 9780452267572

Publisher: Plume, 1992

Synopsis

Headline stories in The New York Times and other major publications have heralded the breakthroughs being made by Dr. Howard S. Friedman and his colleagues at the University of California in understanding the disease-prone and self-healing personalities. Dr. Friedman demonstrates that no single diet, fitness or self-improvement programs can promise health, for each of us possesses a unique combination of genetic makeup, behavioral habits and emotional responses. What are the health effects of our chronic mood states? How are heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and other diseases related to personality? How can the disease-prone personality be altered? This book answers these questions in terms of the ideal of homeostasis one s own best combination of physiological and psychosomatic control factors that help one realize a truly self-healing personality. Enhance and preserve your health with this exciting, authoritative interdisciplinary book by one of the foremost experts on health psychology!

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Within the huge and expensive U.S. health care system, the emotional factors that affect health are, in some views, not always taken seriously. Friedman, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, welcomely redresses that state of affairs. He recounts an enormous number of scientific studies that have suggested definite relationships between emotions and illness, concluding that if emotional makeup is poorly matched to lifestyle, the risk of disease is greater, and explaining the biologic reasons for such tendencies--how depression suppresses the body's immune system, for example. Using the ancient model of the four humors, the author sets forth convincing models for three unhealthy personality types: melancholic; choleric (hostile); and phlegmatic (stoic or apathetic)--and a fourth, the "self-healing" personality (sanguine, or cheerful). And though he decries trendy methods for achieving the "emotional equilibrium" of the sanguine, Friedman does believe that small, repetitive changes in daily activities and behavior can begin to build positive traits and, thus, resistance to disease.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...should be read by everyone wanting an elegant, understandable explanation of the latest scientific findings." -- Dr. Margaret Chesney, American Psychological Association

Edition details

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0452267579
• ISBN 13: 9780452267572
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256