September 9, 2019

“Health, Mind & Behaviour” Film (DVD 10691)

 Today research is forcing a profound rethinking of the relationship between the

activities of the mind and those of the body.

 The human mind influences susceptibility and resistance to disease.

 The more traditional biomedical model is being joined by a biopsychosocial model

 Each individual is seen as human system in which mental and physical processes

constantly interact and affect each other.

 In the Navajo concept ofhozho, beauty, peace of mind, goodness, and health are all

inextricably intertwined.

o In the Navajo world, illness is considered the result of disharmony.

 Today health psychology is one of the most innovative and exciting fields of psychology.

 It’s now believed that there are at least four ways in which psychology and medical

problems are related:

1. Some organic malfunction and tissue damage may be psychogenic.

2. All the complaints which patients bring to physicians that turn put to have no

apparent organic basis.

3. Psychological factors can also work indirectly by weakening, or strengthening, or

resistance to disease.

4. Psychological factors that help cause unhealthy behaviour, which turn causes

illness.

 The body has devised a series of defences:

 o External defences: the skin and the mucous membrane coated with anti bodies.

 Biofeedback: The process of acquiring voluntary control over non-conscious biological

functions.

 Stress is defined scientifically as the pattern of responses an organism makes to events

that disturb its equilibrium, attack its ability to cope, or exceed its ability to cope.

 The earliest research on stress was conducted by a Canadian physician, Hans Seyle, who

studied stressors that threaten the physical functioning on animals.

 Seyle discovered general adoption syndrome and characterized it as having three

stages:

1. Alarm reactions stimulate the pituitary and adrenal glands to release hormones

that mobilize the body’s defence.

2. Stage of resistance, in which hormonal secretions are activated to counteract the

effect of the stressors.

3. Stage of exhaustion.

 One person’s stress can be another person’s excitement.

 Cognitive appraisal (by Richard Lazarus) refers to the personal interpretation of a

situation that ultimately influences the extent to which the situation is perceived as

stressful.

 Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS): A severe immunological disorder

caused by a virus that destroys the body's immune system and weakens the ability to

fight harmful bacteria.