Access to higher education

Psychology assignment (karon Chewter 7nd March 2016)

Psychology applied to health

Health psychology is the study of health, illnessillness, and health care practice. Health psychology as a unique area of psychology came to the forefront in the 1970s and has since grown. (Gross.R 2005)

Health psychology is an exciting and relatively new field devoted to understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill and how they respond when they do get ill? It focuses on health promotion and maintenance, prevention and treatment of illness and the understanding of the biopsychosocial aspects of physical and mental illness, improvement of the health care system and the formulation of health policy (S.E, Taylor, 1995). The main areas of health psychology are stress and coping, health behaviours and issues in health. Health psychologists study such issues and develop interventions to help people stay well or get over illness. For exampleexample, a health psychology researcher might be interested in why adolescents continue to binge drink even though they know that binge drinking increases their risk of cancer and heart disease. Understanding this poor health habit leads to interventions to help adolescents stop binge drinking. The waysways, in which health psychologists try to change the behaviours, the influence of behaviourist such as Skinner and Watson will become apparent. Applying basic behaviourist theories (example classical and operant conditioning) can help adolescents to stop binge drinking and encourage them to eat healthily and live healthy. (Stephen, N. 2015)

Heath psychology aims to understand, explainexplain, and ideally predict health and illness behaviour in order that effective interventions can be developed to reduce the physical and emotional costs of risky behaviour and illness. Health psychology offers a holistic but fundamentally psychological approach to issues in health, illnessillness, and health care. (Sarafino .E 2006)

Adolescence is the period typically believed to be between childhood and adulthood. The word ‘adolescent’ comes from the Latin word adolescence meaning ‘to grow into maturity’ and involves multiple transitions (Gross 2010). Dropping out of school, being out of work, teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases ,beingdiseases, being homeless, drug addiction and bingeand drinking are powerfulare powerful examples of the price that this group pay for their extended freedom. (Levy, S. (n.d)

The relation between health psychology and adolescent behaviours were investigated in subjects studied longitudinally. Adolescents who had experimented in some harmful chemical substance (binge drinking) experimentation were the best-adjustedbest adjusted in the sample. Adolescents who used binge frequently were neurotic, showing a distinct personality syndrome marked by interpersonal alienation, poor impulse control, and manifest emotional distress. Adolescents had never experimented with any harmful chemical substance were relatively anxious, emotionally constricted, and lacking in social skills. (Resnick .M 1997).

Health psychology is divided into two models, the biomedical model and biopsychosocial model. The biomedical model is the primary manner in which health care professionals diagnose and treat disease .The biomedical model of health states that the individual is not responsible for their illness and that the mind and body work independently from each other (Carmichael, M, 2010.). However, for example, in the case of an adolescent who enjoys binge eating or drinking, this indicates that there is a clear link between the mind and body due to the potential suffering from liver diseases after ingesting high level of alcohol. Therefore resulting in the person being responsible for their physical illness due to psychological illness. In this modelmodel, a symptom of illness is considered to have an underlying diseasesan underlying disease that will be hopefully but not inevitably cured through medical intervention which is the biomedical model. (Design, Mheducation) The assumption is that removal of diseases will lead to restore health. This is a relatively mechanistic view of how our bodies and organs work, fail, and can be treated. The biomedical model views have been described as reductionist i.e. the basic idea that mind, body and human behaviours can all be reduced to and explained at the level of cells, neural activity or biomedical activity. Reductionism tends to ignore evidence that different adolescents respond in different ways to the same underlying disease because of differences, for example, in personality, cognition, social support resourcesresources, and cultural beliefs. (Eysenck, M, 2006.)

‘‘The idea that mind and the body together determine health and illness logically implies a model for studying these issuethis issue is called biopsychosocial model’’. (S.E, Taylor.1995). An understandingUnderstandings of the different definitions, culture becomes a useful aid to the study of health and examine why we do, or do not do things that are good for us. Most behaviours that influence health, whether healthy ones, such as physical activity and eating nutritionally balanced diets or unhealthy ones such as binge drinking excessively, depend heavily on the culture in which adolescents grow. That fact that the behaviour is influenced by many factors outside of the individual, is a critical aspect on which health psychologist’s focus. Binge drinking provides a good example of how the biopsychosocial model is used. Adolescents may start binge drinking for psychological reasons such as thinking it makes them less stressed or because of personality traits, or it could be because of perceived culture norms or due to pressure from their social networks but alcoholic addictions have a strong biological component in terms of their heritability.(Gross ,R.20006)

Health psychology uses a biopsychosocial approach. This approach focuses on the biological, psychologicalpsychological, and social factors that influence health and health behaviours. Biological terms includesA biological term includes the genetic materials and processes by which we inherit characteristics form our parents. It also includes the function and structure of person’s physiology. Psychological describe the behaviour and mental processes , in other word it can be describe as psychological factors .behaviour and mental processes are focus of health psychology and it include cognitive, emotion and motivation Social factors simple explain about social world. We live in society and interacted with people. As a part of society, we affect them and they affect us (Gross, R, 2000)

The biopsychosocial model has proven to be useful for clinical practice. FirstFirst, the process of diagnosis should always consider the interacting role of biological, psychologicalpsychological, and social factors in assessment an individual’s health or illness. Secondly, recommendations for treatment must also involves all three sets of factors. By doing thisthis, it should be possible to targets therapy uniquely to a particular individualsto a particular individual consider a person health status in total and make treatment recommendations that can deal with more than one problem simultaneously. Third, the biopsychological model makes explicit the significance of the relationship between patient and practitioner. FinallyFinally, the biopsychological model maintainmodel maintains that the achievement and, maintence of heath and the practice of health habits involve the interaction of biological, psychologicalpsychological, and social factors. (Sarafino, E, 2006).

After smoking, drug useuse and caffeine, binge is the next most commonly used psychoactive drug in society. While binge drinking behaviours receives a vast amount of negative publicity arising from the death toll attached to it binge is a legal drugs, with sale of alcohol based substances providing many binge companies and government (as a result of alcohol tax ) with a vast income (as does alcohol). A shift in how society views binge drinking has slowly taken shape, with in work bans, legislation regarding binge drinking in public place and restrictions on binge drinking and tobacco advertising have some effect but binge drinking prevalence remain high(Laugesen, M, 1991). Reducing binge drinking behaviours continues to be a public health target and indeed in developing countries, where binge drinking g prevalence particular among adolescent has increased rather than decreases. (Gross.R.2000)

Bibliography

Gross, R, 2005. Psychology (the science of mind and behaviour). 5th ed. 90 Tottenham court road, London: British library

Gross, R, 2000. Psychology (a new introduction for A level). 2nd ed. 90 Tottenham court road, London: British library

Gross, R. (2010). Adolscence (6 ed.). London: British Library.

Eysenck, M, 2006. A2 Psychology (Key Topic). 2nd ed. 27 Church Road Hove, East Sussex, BN32FA: Psychology Press Ltd.

Carmichael, M, 2010. Essential Psychology. 1st ed. 1 Oliver yard, London: Sage

Sarafino, E, 2006. Health Psychology Biopsychosocial Interactions. 6th ed. United States of America: John Wiley

Hayes, N. 2000. Foundation of psychology. 3rd ed. London, Berkshire house: Thomson learning.

S.E, Taylor, 1995. Health Psychology. 3rd ed. New York: NY: McGraw-Hill.

Laugesen, M, 1991. Tobacco advertising restriction, price income1960-1986. British Journal of Addiction, 86: 1343-54 Resnick .M 1997.

Levy, S. (n.d.). Behavioral Problems in Adolescents. MSD manuals: http://www.msdmanuals.com/en-gb/home/children's-health-issues/problems-in-adolescents/behavioral-problems-in-adolescents

[Accessed March 08, 2016,

Protecting Adolescents from Harm. [ONLINE] Available at: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=418137 [Accessed 07 March 16]

Design, Mheducation. UK. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/0335214878.pdf.

[Accessed 01 March 16].

Wise Greek. Unknown. Biomedical. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-biomedical-model.htm.

[Accessed 01 March 16].