Role of Psychology in Health | Report

Running head: THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN HEALTH
THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN HEALTH
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THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN HEALTH1
1.1 Definition of health
The definitions of health has changed over the past years. The ways of thinking and the
approaches towards health has changed the perspectives of health care practitioners towards
health. World health organisation (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental
and social well-being” (Charlier et al. 2017). Earlier a healthy person was recognized when there
was a complete absence of diseases. The writers of the definition of health by WHO recognized
that the mere absence of diseases was not enough for a person to be considered as a healthy
being. The mental and the social aspects of the person’s health should be taken into account too.
A physically fit person should be mentally and socially healthy person too.
There are three other definitions of health that are used today. The first definition of
health is the absence of any kind of disease or impairment. The second kind of definition is that
health is a state of an individual that allows him or her to cope with the demands of everyday life
in an adequate manner. The third definition of health describes it as a state of equilibrium or
balance that an individual has successfully established within himself as well as between his
social and physical environment. The way an individual feels about his health is beyond the
paradigm of health (Nobile 2014). Thus, through the analysis of the various definitions of health
it can be analysed that a healthy person is one who has achieved the capability of adjusting to his
surroundings and is able to respond to the environmental needs in a proper functional way.
1.2 Current perspectives in health psychology
Health psychology aims at analyzing the influence of biological, social and the
psychological aspects on the health and illness of an individual. The traditional approach to
health viewed the mind and the body as separate entities (Deacon and McKay 2015). However,

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recent studies have showed that the mind and the body are intimately related and that influences
the physical as well as the mental health of the individual. The new perspective to health
psychology is the biosocial model of health that was developed by Dr. George Engel and John
Romano. This model of health completely contrasts the traditional biomedical approach to health
that stated that health is completely based on the biological factors and it does not include the
psychological, social and environmental influences that can affect health. The bio-psycho-social
model of health recognizes the interaction of biological, psychological and social factors that
make a person healthy (Lehman, David and Gruber 2017). The biological factor includes the
genetics and the heredity of the individual that can be the cause of developing of diseases in an
individual. Many studies have shown that schizophrenia is caused due to heredity. Having a first-
degree relative with a particular disease increase the risk by 6.5% for the relative to get affected
by it. 40% of the monozygotic twins were reported to be affected by the disorder.
The psychological factors include the lifestyle, stress and other health beliefs that can
cause illness in an individual. The current lifestyle practices of people have increased the level of
stress in people and that has been related with several diseases like heart diseases and other kinds
of organs failures. Genetically vulnerable people may be predisposed to show negative
behavioral thinking such as depression. On the contrary, psychological factors may aggravate
these biological predispositions and push that person into developing risk behaviours.
Cognition, emotion and motivation encompass the behaviour and mental processes
(Taylor 2015). Cognition includes all the mental activities like learning, remembering, thinking,
perceiving and problem solving. If a person believes that life is not worth living if he does not
smoke, then no amount of persuasion can stop him from smoking. Emotion is the subjective
feeling that includes the thoughts, behaviours and feelings. People who are relatively positive are