1. Introduction to Health Psychology
August 31, 2004

2. Overview What is Health Psychology?
Course Goals, Requirements, & Policies
The Mind Body Relationship: A Brief History

3. What is Health Psychology?
The field that seeks to understand the behavioral and psychological factors that impact health:
How does behavior promote and maintain health?
Why do some individuals become ill?
How do individuals respond when they become ill?
How do biological, psychological, and social forces interact to impact health outcomes?

4. World Health Organization’s Definition (1948)
Health is a complete state of well-being:
Physical well being
Mental well being
Social well being
Health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
This state of optimum health is called, “wellness”.
The World Health Organization was formed April 7, 1948 and this definition is a part of the WHO Constitution.
WHO definition of Health
Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force on 7 April 1948.
For more information, go to
SARS
The World Health Organization, especially the Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response (CSR), has become a frequently cited source throughout the media coverage of SARS – severe acute respiratory syndrome.
SARS is a new disease, one that did not exist when our book was published. There are many questions that need to be answered:
What procedures are most effective for disinfecting and cleaning when an institution is caring for patients with SARS?
How many health care workers have contracted SARS through their work? How many fatalities? What preventive measures are needed?
What are the consequences of SARS during pregnancy, for mother and for fetus?
From May 16 to May 17, 2003, a group of experts met in Geneva to hold the first global consultation on SARS. Those epidemiologists who could not attend were able to participate through video and audio links.
Through collaboration on a global level, WHO believes that it will be possible to contain SARS. May 17, 2003.

5. Areas of Focus In Health Psychology
Health Promotion and Maintenance
Prevention and Treatment of Illness
Etiology (causes) and Correlates of Health and Illness
Health Policy and Health Care Service Delivery

6. Course Goals
Review the models of health specifically contrasting the biomedical and biopsychosocial models
Understand psychological processes which contribute to physical health: stress, individual differences, psychological quality of life
Review health behaviors and related factors
Analyze approaches to health promotion and intervention
Explore factors affecting the patient/consumer utilization of medical services and relationship to providers
Review factors related to coping with chronic and terminal illness
Focus on social and structural factors affecting wellness

7. Course Requirements Exams Brief Proposal and Annotated Bibliography
Four in-class exams
Lowest exam score dropped
No make up exams
Cumulative final
Brief Proposal and Annotated Bibliography
In five to ten sentences you will propose a health-related research project or intervention.
Read and annotate five articles from peer-reviewed journals
Be specific about how the article relates to your proposed project or intervention
Due by or before November 23rd
In-Class Activities (12)
Announced and Unannounced
Lowest two scores dropped
Students may have one “relief” assignment – see syllabus for details

8. Readings All readings are available online
Log on the library’s website and then search for the journal by title.
You must log on to a computer on campus.

9. Policies Academic Integrity:
Each student is responsible for reviewing the scholastic dishonesty policy of Michigan State University.
Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated; this includes giving or received aid on exams, as well as plagiarism for text and electronic sources.
All exams are “closed-book” exams
General Policies:
No cell phones, pagers, cd/radios/ headphones or newspapers are allowed in class
Please turn off all cell phones and pagers before class.
There will be no make-up exams or assignments

10. The Mind-Body Relationship
What is the relationship between the mind and body?
Are the body and mind completely separate?
Do they interact? If so how?

11. The Mind-Body Relationship: A Brief History
Ancient Times
In ancient civilizations there was a belief that spirits influenced human conduct and natural phenomena.
Illness was treated as a disturbance in the body caused by an evil spirit.
Stone age skulls have been found with small holes in them (trephination) to release evil spirits.
Shaman performs the treatment.

12. The Mind-Body Relationship: A Brief History
Early Greek Medicine
The early Greeks identified the role of the physical body in illness
Hippocrates ( B.C.)
Disorders are caused by natural factors
There are four humors in the body that need to be in balance for optimal health
The body has the capacity to heal itself; treat the total patient, not just the disease

13. The Mind-Body Relationship: A Brief History
Galen (A.D )
Related Humoral Theory to personality
Humor
Temperament
Characteristic
Phlegm
Phlegmatic
Sluggish, unemotional
Blood
Sanguine
Cheerful
Yellow bile
Choleric
Quick-tempered, fiery
Black bile
Melancholic
Sad

14. The Mind-Body Relationship
Middle Ages: Mysticism and demonology
Disease was considered a punishment from God
Evil is driven out of the body through torture
The priest was the primary healer

15. The Mind-Body Relationship
The Renaissance
Mind and body are two separate systems
Dualistic concept of mind and body attempts to break away from superstitions of past centuries.
Theologians, priests, philosophers treat the mind.
Physicians heal the body.
Physical evidence sole basis for diagnosis and treatment of illnesses.

16. The Mind-Body Relationship
Early technological advances separate the mind from the body
Rejection of the Humoral Theory
Anton van Leeuwenhoek ( ): microscopy
Giovanni Morgagni ( ): autopsies
Physical evidence becomes the sole basis for diagnosing and treating illness.

17. The Mind-Body Relationship
Psychoanalytic contributions
Conversion hysteria (Freud)
The mind and body are linked:
Specific unconscious conflicts can lead to particular physical disturbances.
This occurs through the voluntary nervous system.
The conflict is converted into a physical symptom to release anxiety.
Many of these conversions are biologically impossible i.e. glove anesthesia.

18. The Mind-Body Relationship
Psychosomatic Medicine
Field developed in the early 1900s.
Focus on the study and treatment of particular diseases believed to be caused by emotional conflicts.
asthma, ulcers, hypertension

19. The Mind-Body Relationship
Psychosomatic Medicine (1930s-1940s)
Flanders Dunbar and Franz Alexander
Patterns of personality are linked to specific illnesses.
Psychological conflicts produce anxiety which, in turn, has a physiological effect through the autonomic nervous system.
Critiques of methodology used in this approach

20. The Mind-Body Relationship
Contemporary View
Physical health is interwoven with mental health and the social environment.
The mind and the body are connected in matters of health and illness.

21. Next Time The Emergence of Health Psychology The Biopsychosocial Model
Systems of the Body