Psychological Health & Well-Being - PSYX2222
Week 1 - Intro to Health & Well-Being

Historical Models of Health in Psychology

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Pre-historic Concepts of Illness

  • Supernatural explanations

  • Evil spirits

  • Trephining (Holes inthe head to allow evil spirits to leave

Early history

  • Hippocrates - Greek (460-377 BC)

  • Humoral theory: 4 Humours

    • Blood

    • Yellow Bile

    • Black Bile

    • Phlegm

  • Mind and body were seen as separate entities

  • Mind had no impact on health

  • Galen (129-216 AD:

    • Localised diseases to particular organs

    • Placed the brain as the centre of the mind

Islamic Golden Age

  • 8th - 14th Centuries

  • Established formal learning centres

  • First mental hospital - Baghdad 792 AD

Middle Ages

  • 5th - 14th Centuries

  • Regression to supernatural

  • Illnesses attributed to a blend of humoral theory, astrology, punishment for sin, etc.

Renaissance

  • 15th - 16th Centuries

  • Rene Descartes: Proposed mind and body communicating through pineal gland

  • Body regarded as a machine

  • Mind and body are separate entities

  • Bedlam - Asylym in monastery of ‘St. Marys of Bethlehem’ in London

  • Used harsh tactics to control patients

Enlightenment & Scientific Revolution

  • 17th - 19th Centuries

  • Surges in intellectual reason and individualism

  • Challenges to religious and political structures

  • Birth of psychology: Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) campaigned to make psychology an independent discipline.

  • Asylums: credibility was questioned by public

  • Hospitals: No longer just places to die

  • (-ve) Female Hysteria, Phrenology

The Biomedical Model

  • Led to the development of vaccines and antibiotics

  • Traditional view of western medicine

  • Health equals the absence of disease

  • Disease is the result of exposure to a pathogen, a genetic abnormality, or an injury.

Strengths:

  • Clear diagnosis and treatment

  • Effective for acute and physical conditions

  • Scientific basis

Limitations:

  • Too much emphasis on biological processes

  • Neglects contextual factors

  • Limited treatment options

Psychosomatic Medicine

  • Early 1900s

  • Repressed emotions manifested as physical symptoms

  • Personality types are linked with specific illnesses, such as heart, disease, and ulcers

  • Made some bizarre claims

The Biopsychosocial Model

  • Engel (1977)

  • Health and illness have multiple aetiologies, effects, and treatment options.

  • Relies on simultaneous levels of analysis to consider both nature and nurture in health and illness.

Biological:

  • Genetic factors

  • The endocrine system

  • All other physical factors such as age etc.

Psychological:

  • Includes behavioural and cognitive perspectives

  • Thoughts, beliefs, values, feelings, and actions.

Social:

  • Include social, environmental, and cultural elements

  • Relationships and culture, as well as situational events such as natural disasters, heat, cold, and noise.

Strengths:

  • Holistic approach

  • Views health as a positive condition, not just the absence of disease

Limitations:

  • Maybe impractical for practitioners to address all biopsychosocial factors

  • Considering too many things at once can make treatments confusing and less effective.

The Information Age

  • 1970s - present

  • Refinement of holistic psychopharmacological options

  • Destigmatising mental illness

  • Concerns re global health and social disparities, and limited economic or social support

Health Psychology

  • Aims to understand how people stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they get ill

  • Examines the psychological and social factors that lead to the enhancement of health and the prevention or treatment of illness

  • Informs health policies and influences healthcare