Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:09:19.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

19 - Health Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2019

By
Wade E. Pickren
Edited by
Robert J. Sternberg  and
Wade E. Pickren
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Wade E. Pickren
Affiliation:
Ithaca College, New York
Get access

Summary

Across time and place, there have been many intellectual and practical traditions regarding the relations among mind, body, and health. This chapter provides a brief overview of these rich traditions but focuses on their relevance to the emergence and subsequent development of the contemporary field of health psychology in the last third of the twentieth century in the United States. Over its relatively brief history as a field within psychology, health psychology quickly became clinically focused in the United States in order to succeed as part of biomedicine’s allied health professions, with all the attendant strengths and weaknesses that membership in such professions entail. The chapter also provides a brief account of three other contemporary expressions of health psychology – community, critical, and public health – that have made important contributions to our understanding of mind and health.

Keywords

history of health psychologyhistory of lifestyle and stressclinical health psychologyinfluences of New Thought on psychologyemotions and the body in healthcritical health psychologypublic health psychologycommunity health psychology
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Intellectual History of Psychology , pp. 495 - 511
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, N. E. (2009). Health disparities through a psychological lens. American Psychologist, 64, 663–673.Google Scholar
Adler, N. E., & Stewart, J. (2010). Health disparities across the lifespan: Meaning, methods, and mechanisms. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1186, 5–23.Google Scholar
Albanese, C. L. (2007). A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Alexander, F. (1934). The influence of psychologic factors upon gastro-intestinal disturbances: A symposium. I. General principles, objectives, and preliminary results. Psychoanalytical Quarterly, 3, 501–539.Google Scholar
Bertalanffy, L. von (1968). General Systems Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. New York: George Braziller.Google Scholar
Bhawuk, D. P. S. (2011). Spirituality and Indian Psychology. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Brady, J. V. (1958). Ulcers in “executive” monkeys. Science, 199, 95–100.Google Scholar
Brown, T. M. (1987). Alan Gregg and the Rockefeller Foundation’s support of Franz Alexander’s psychosomatic research. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 65, 155–182.Google Scholar
Bugos, G. E. (1989). Managing cooperative research and borderland science in the National Research Council, 1922–1942. Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 20, 1–32.Google Scholar
Calden, G., Thurston, J. R., Stewart, B. M, & Vineberg, S. E. (1955). The use of the MMPI in predicting irregular discharge among tuberculosis patients. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 11, 374–377.Google Scholar
Cowen, E. L. (1980). The wooing of primary prevention. American Journal of Community Psychology, 8, 258–284.Google Scholar
Deutsch, F. (1924). Zur Bildung des Konversionssymptoms [Knowledge on conversion symptom]. Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalise, 8, 290–306.Google Scholar
Dollard, J., Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O. H., & Sears, R. R. (1939). Frustration and Aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dunbar, H. F. (1939). Introductory statement. Psychosomatic Medicine, 1, 3–5.Google Scholar
Engel, G. L. (1977). The need for a new medical model: A challenge for biomedicine. Science, 196, 129–136.Google Scholar
Engel, G. L., & Schmale, A. H. (1972). Conservation-withdrawal: A primary regulatory process for organismic homeostasis. In Porter, R. & Knight, J. (Eds.), Physiology, Emotion & Psychosomatic Illness, Ciba Foundation Symposium (Vol. 8, pp. 57–85). Amsterdam: Elsevier-Excerpta Medica.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1953–1974). Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy. In Strachey, J. (Ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 10, pp. 3–149). London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. (Original work published 1909).Google Scholar
Freud, S., & Breuer, J. (1953–1974). Studies on hysteria. In Strachey, J. (Ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 2). London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis,. (Original work published 1895).Google Scholar
Friedman, H. S., & Adler, N. E. (2007). The history and background of health psychology.  In Friedman, H. S. & Silver, R. C. (Eds.), Foundations of Health Psychology (pp. 3–18). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ghaemi, S. N. (2010). The Rise and Fall of the Biopsychosocial Model. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Grinker, R. R., & Spiegel, J. P. (1945). Men under Stress. Philadelphia: Blakiston.Google Scholar
Grob, G. N. (1991). From Asylum to Community: Mental Health Policy in Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hale, N. G. (1995). The Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis in the United States: Freud and the Americans, 1917–1985. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haley, B. (1978). The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Harrington, A. (2008). The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Hatch, N. O. (1989). The Democratization of American Christianity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Hepworth, J. (2004). Public health psychology: A conceptual and practical framework. Journal of Health Psychology, 9, 41–54.Google Scholar
Hepworth, J. (2006). The emergence of critical health psychology: Can it contribute to promoting public health? Journal of Health Psychology, 11, 331–341.Google Scholar
Hildreth, H. M. (1954). Clinical psychology in the Veterans Administration. In Rubinstein, E. A. & Lorr, M. (Eds.), Survey of Clinical Practice in Psychology (pp. 83–108). New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Hodgetts, D., Stolte, O., & Rua, M. (2016). Psychological practice, social determinants of health and the promotion of human flourishing. In Waitoki, W., Feather, J. S., Robertson, N. R., & Rucklidge, J. J. (Eds.), Professional Practice of Psychology (3rd ed., pp. 425–436). Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Psychological Society.Google Scholar
Holmes, T. H., & Rahe, R. H. (1967). The social readjustments rating scales. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11, 213–218.Google Scholar
Hornstein, G. A. (1992). The return of the repressed: Psychology’s problematic relations with psychoanalysis, 1909–1960. American Psychologist, 47, 254–263.Google Scholar
James, W. (1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Longman, Green & Co.Google Scholar
James, W. (1907). The energies of men. Philosophical Review, 16, 1–20.Google Scholar
Kelly, J. G. (2005). The National Institute of Mental Health and the founding of the field of community psychology. In Pickren, W. E. & Schneider, S. F. (Eds.), Psychology and the National Institute of Mental Health: A Historical Analysis of Science, Practice, and Policy (pp. 233–259). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Keshet, Y., Ben-Ayre, E., & Schiff, E. (2013). The use of boundary objects to enhance interprofessional collaboration: Integrating complementary medicine in a hospital setting. Sociology of Health and Illness, 35, 666–681.Google Scholar
Kimball, C. P. (1970). Conceptual developments in psychosomatic medicine: 1939–1969. Annals of Internal Medicine, 73, 307–316.Google Scholar
Loss, C. P. (2002). Religion and the therapeutic ethos in twentieth century American history. American Studies International, 40, 61–76.Google Scholar
Lyons, A. C., & Chamberlain, K. (2006). Health Psychology: A Critical Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marks, D. F. (1996). Health psychology in context. Journal of Health Psychology, 1, 7–21.Google Scholar
Marmot, M. (2004). Status Syndrome: How Your Social Standing Directly Affects Your Health and Life Expectancy. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Mason, J. W. (1975). A historical view of the stress field. Journal of Human Stress, 1, 6–12.Google Scholar
Matarazzo, J. D. (1982). Behavioral health’s challenge to academic, scientific, and professional psychology. American Psychologist, 37, 1–14.Google Scholar
Mensh, I. N. (1953). Psychology in medical education. American Psychologist, 8, 83–85.Google Scholar
Murray, M. (2015). Critical Health Psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Murray, M., Nelson, G., Poland, B., Maticka-Tyndale, E., & Ferris, L. (2004). Assumptions and values of community health psychology. Journal of Health Psychology, 9, 323–333.Google Scholar
Paré, W. P. (1962). The effect of conflict and shock stress on stomach ulceration in the rat. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 6, 223–225.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pettit, M. (2013). Becoming glandular: Endocrinology, mass culture, and experimental lives in the interwar age. American Historical Review, 118, 1052–1076.Google Scholar
Pickren, W. E. (1997). Robert Yerkes, Calvin Stone, and the beginning of programmatic sex research by psychologists. American Journal of Psychology, 110, 603–619.Google Scholar
Pickren, W. E., & Degni, S. (2011). A history of the development of health psychology. In Friedman, H. (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of Health Psychology (pp. 15–41). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pickren, W. E., & Rutherford, A. (2010). A History of Modern Psychology in Context. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Prilleltensky, I., & Prilleltenksy, O. (2003). Towards a critical health psychology practice. Journal of Health Psychology, 8, 197–210.Google Scholar
Radley, A. (1994). Making Sense of Illness: The Social Psychology of Health and Illness. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Radley, A. (2009). Works of Illness: Narrative, Picturing and the Social Response to Serious Disease. London: InkerMen Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. (1958).  A History of Public Health. New York: MD Publications.Google Scholar
Sarason, S. B. (1981). An asocial psychology and a misdirected clinical psychology. American Psychologist, 36, 827–836.Google Scholar
Schmit, D. (2005). Re-visioning American antebellum psychology: The dissemination of mesmerism, 1836–1854. History of Psychology, 8, 403–434.Google Scholar
Schofield, W. (1969). The role of psychology in the delivery of health services. American Psychologist, 24, 565–584.Google Scholar
Schwartz, G. E. (1982). Testing the biopsychosocial model: The ultimate challenge facing behavioral medicine. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 50, 1040–1053.Google Scholar
Seligman, R. (2014). Possessing Spirits and Healing Selves: Embodiment and Transformation in an Afro-Brazilian Religion. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Selye, H. (1956). The Stress of Life. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Shakow, D., & Rapaport, D. (1964). The Influence of Freud on American Psychology. New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Shek, D. T. L. (2010) The spirituality of the Chinese people: A critical review. In Bond, M. H. (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of Chinese Psychology (pp. 343–366). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stam, H. J. (2000). Theorizing health and illness: Functionalism, subjectivity, and reflexivity. Journal of Health Psychology, 5, 273–284.Google Scholar
Stam, H. J. (2015). A critical history of health psychology and its relationship to biomedicine. In Murray, M. (Ed.), Critical Health Psychology (pp. 19–35). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Starr, P. (1984). The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Stratton, G. M. (1926). Emotions and the incidence of disease. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 21, 19–23.Google Scholar
Taves, A. (1999). Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, E. (1999). Shadow Culture: Psychology and Spirituality in America. Washington, DC: Counterpoint.Google Scholar
Taylor, G. J., Bagby, R. M., & Parker, J. D. A. (1997). Disorders of Affect Regulation: Alexithymia in Medical and Psychiatric Illness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wallston, K. A. (1997). A history of Division 38 (Health Psychology): Healthy, wealthy, and Weiss. In Dewsbury, D. A. (Ed.), Unification through Division: Histories of the Divisions of the American Psychological Association (Vol. 2, pp. 239–267). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
White, C. G. (2009). Unsettled Minds: Psychology and the American Search for Spiritual Assurance, 1830–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Whorton, J. C. (1982). Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. E. (2006). Income inequality and population health: A review and explanation of the evidence. Social Science & Medicine, 62, 1768–1784.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. E. (2010). The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. New York: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Yen, J. (2016). Psychology and health after apartheid: Or, why there is no health psychology in South Africa. History of Psychology, 19, 77–92.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×