PSY 0010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Somatization Disorder, Psychosomatic Medicine, Conversion Disorder
Document Summary
Health psychology: the subfield of psychology concerned with the ways psychological factors influence the causes and treatment of physical illness and maintenance of health. Stressors: specific events or chronic pressures that place demands on a person or threaten the person"s well-being. Stress: the physical and psychological response to internal or external stressors. Chronic stressors: sources of stress that occur continuously or repeatedly. Stress has an impact on your overall health. Perceived control over stress and learned helplessness: expecting to fail, and therefore failing. Immune system: a couple response system that protects the body from bacteria, viruses, and other foreign substances. Lymphocytes: white blood cells that produce antibodies that fight infection. The interpretation of a stimulus as stressful or not is called primary appraisal. Determining whether the stressor is something you can handle/have control o not is called secondary appraisal. The body responds differently to a threat (negative appraisal) than a challenge (positive appraisal)
