PSY-3653 Lecture 1: Unit 1 (Chapters 1-5)
Document Summary
Health psychology, simply put, is a subfield of psychology that: applies psychological principles and research, enhances health, treats and prevents illness. Professionals: require an advanced degree, work in a variety of settings teaching or researching, clinical health psychologists licensed for independent practice and focused on clinical intervention. Although all human civilizations across all time periods have been affected by disease, each one has understood and treated it differently. Prehistoric views of medicine (20,000 years ago) often identified good and evil spirits as the origin of illness. Only shamans (priests of medicine men) could influence these spirits: trephination was a popular surgical treatment at the time that removed spirits though a hole drilled in the person"s skill. It was common in europe, egypt, india< and central and south. Around 4,000 years ago, some people realized that hygiene played a role in health. Egyptians engaged in cleaning rites and mesopotamia began manufacturing soap.