Psychosocial Processes and Health: A Reader - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521426189 ISBN 13: 9780521426183

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Understanding the links among social environment, emotion, behavior, and illness is a growing theme in medical and health education. The booming development in this field is reflected in the growth of disciplines such as health psychology, psychosocial epidemiology, and behavioral medicine. Until now, however, the basic literature has been awkwardly dispersed across medical and social science journals. Now the most important articles of the past thirty years are brought together in a single volume. The thirty-one articles are grouped around themes such as "Life stress, social support and health," "Psychophysiological processes in diseases," and "Behavioral interventions in medicine." The articles include such provocative topics as "Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease?," "Psychological response to breast cancer: effect on outcome," and "Psychological stress and susceptibility to the common cold." Each section is prefaced by an up-to-date review of the subject by the volume editors. Uniting biomedical, psychological, and social perspectives, this text will be an invaluable resource for both scholars and students of medicine, health sciences, and clinical and health psychology.

About this title

Book Description

Understanding the links among the social environment, emotion, behavior and illness is a growing theme in medical and health education. This compilation makes available some of the most important articles published over the past thirty years in a one volume work.

Review

"This collection...concentrates the reader's attention on real issues that arise in treating real people with real illnesses." Harry T. Reis, Contemporary Psychology

"...the editors have done a good job. They discuss each paper in some detail, putting it in a wider historical and methodological context. Their commentary goes well beyond the collected abstracts of each paper and shows that they are well acquainted the subject. They certainly help the newcomer to appreciate each paper in turn and go a long way to justify why each was chosen....a useful reference for researchers in psychological medicine." Adrian Furnham, British Medical Journal

"...the weaving together of these papers in one volume, with helpful commentary for each theme, represents good value for money spent. For those of us who are trying to teach in this field, I can think of no better set of readings for a graduate-school course." John W. Frank, Annals RCPSC

"This collection is a convenient resource....The book's major value is the editors' well-referenced, concise, and lucid summaries of the major themes which preface each section....This book should also be a valuable resource for experienced clinicians with an interest in the biopsychosocial model of health or those with an interest in a particular chronic disease who wish to expand their base of knowledge and understanding of how psychosocial processes influence other disease processes." Alan T. Kaell, The Quarterly Review of Biology

"Wardle and Stpetoe have wisely collected together and reprinted 31 major (and highly influential) papers on the links among the social environment, emotion, behaviour and illness. Psychosocial Processes and Health: A Reader is essential for all newcomers to the field of health psychology and good revision for the more experienced: read it." Vincent Egan, Journal of Health Psychology

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521426189
• ISBN 13: 9780521426183
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 540
• Editor: Steptoe Andrew, Wardle Jane