PSY458 Health Psychology
Lead Faculty: Dr. Brenda Lee Shook
Course Description
An examination of the relationship between behavior, psychological variables, and physical illness and health. A strong emphasis is placed on health psychology theory, research and applications focused on wellness promotion and the prevention and behavioral treatment of illness.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe core differences between biopsychosocial vs. biomedical approaches to health and the implications of those differences for prevention and treatment.
- Compare and contrast attitude change, cognitive-behavioral, and social-engineering approaches to important health habits such as diet, exercise and weight control.
- Discuss critical features of modern stress theory and apply stress theory through case analysis.
- Identify problems in the caregiver-patient relationship and formulate case examples showing how such problems might be reduced.
- Describe major features of contemporary biopsychosocial approaches to the management of acute and chronic pain.
- Discuss critical features of behavioral treatment approaches to chronic and terminal illness.
