This exciting collection tours virtual reality in both its current therapeutic forms and its potential to transform a wide range of medical and mental health-related fields. Extensive findings track the contributions of VR devices, systems, and methods to accurate assessment, evidence-based and client-centered treatment methods, and-as described in a stimulating discussion of virtual patient technologies-innovative clinical training. Immersive digital technologies are shown enhancing opportunities for patients to react to situations, therapists to process patients' physiological responses, and scientists to have greater control over test conditions and access to results. Expert coverage details leading-edge applications of VR across a broad spectrum of psychological and neurocognitive conditions, including: Treating anxiety disorders and PTSD. Treating developmental and learning disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorder, Assessment of and rehabilitation from stroke and traumatic brain injuries. Assessment and treatment of substance abuse. Assessment of deviant sexual interests. Treating obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. Augmenting learning skills for blind persons. Readable and relevant, Virtual Reality for Psychological and Neurocognitive Interventions is an essential idea book for neuropsychologists, rehabilitation specialists (including physical, speech, vocational, and occupational therapists), and neurologists. Researchers across the behavioral and social sciences will find it a roadmap toward new and emerging areas of study.

This book critiques the current approach to the self-management of persistent pain. The drive towards self-management of chronic pain is flourishing as healthcare systems struggle to facilitate the care of those with long term health conditions. In this book Karen Rodham argues that albeit an empowering idea, self-management has not yet been fully translated from idea to practice and as such, runs the risk of blaming and shaming the person living with a chronic condition for failing to manage their condition effectively. She contends that the additional stress of this tension may in fact worsen their condition. Drawing from the research evidence as well as her practice experience, she advocates a move away from the terms 'self' and 'management' towards a more collaborative approach. One which takes account of the life-context of the person who is living with persistent pain. This book explores the shortcomings of the tendency to focus on self-management without taking into account life context and considers how we got here and what can be done. It will be a valuable resource to researchers and practitioners, especially in the field of health psychology.

Stigma leads to poorer health. Edited by Brenda Major, John F. Dovidio, and Bruce G. Link, The Oxford Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health provides compelling evidence from various disciplines in support of this thesis and explains how and why health disparities exist and persist. Stigmatization involves distinguishing people by a socially conferred "mark," seeing them as deviant, and devaluing and socially excluding them. The core insight of this book is that the social processes of stigma reliably translate into the biology of disease and death. Contributors elucidate this insight by showing exactly how stigma negatively affects health and creates health disparities through multiple mechanisms operating at different levels of influence. Understanding the causes and consequences of health disparities requires a multi-level analysis that considers structural forces, psychological processes, and biological mechanisms. This volume's unique multidisciplinary approach brings together social and health psychologists, sociologists, public health scholars, and medical ethicists to comprehensively assess stigma's impact on health. It goes beyond the common practice of studying one stigmatized group at a time to examine the stigma-health link across multiple stigmatized groups. This broad, multidisciplinary framework not only illuminates the significant effects stigma has when aggregated across the health of many groups but also increases understanding of which stigma processes are general across groups and which are particular to specific groups. Here, a compendium of leading international experts point readers toward potential policy responses and possibilities for intervention as well as to the large gaps in understanding that remain. This book is the definitive source of scholarship on stigma and physical health for established and emerging scholars, practitioners, and students in psychology, sociology, public health, medicine, law, political science, geography, and the allied disciplines.

In recent decades, American medicine has become increasingly politicized and politics has become increasingly medicalized. Behaviors previously seen as virtuous or wicked, wise or unwise are now dealt with as healthy or sick--unwanted behaviors to be controlled as if they were health issues. The modern penchant for transforming human problems into diseases and judicial sanctions into treatments, replacing the rule of law with the rule of medical discretion, leads to the creation of a type of government social critic Thomas Szasz calls pharmacracy.

Medicalizing troublesome behaviors and social problems is tempting to voters and politicians alike: it panders to the people by promising to satisfy their needs for dependence on medical authority and offers easy self-aggrandizement to politicians as the dispensers of more and better health care. Thus, the people gain a convenient scapegoat, enabling them to avoid personal responsibility for their behavior. The government gains a rationale for endless and politically expedient wars against social problems defined as public health emergencies. The health care system gains prestige, funding, and bureaucratic power that only an alliance with the political system can provide.

However, Szasz warns, the creeping substitution of pharmacracy for democracy--private medical concerns increasingly perceived as requiring a political response--inexorably erodes personal freedom and dignity. "Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America" is a clear and convincing presentation of this hidden danger, all too often ignored in our health care debates and avoided in our political contests.

This volume brings together basic research on the nature of stress reactivity with up-to-date research on the effectiveness and mechanisms of mindfulness interventions. The chapters review the major research areas that elucidate the impact of stress reactivity on health, and explore the mechanisms and effectiveness of mindfulness-based approaches for stress reduction and improved physical and emotional health. The first section examines biopsychosocial mechanisms of stress reactivity such as allostasis and allostatic load, neurobiology of stress, biology of the "fight-or-flight" and "tend-and-befriend" responses, and psychoneuroimmunology. This section concludes by addressing the roles of perception and appraisal, including the role of perceived threat in stress reactivity as well as the role that negative perceptions of the stress response itself play in compromising health. The second section opens with review of leading psychological models of mindfulness, including self-regulation, reperceiving, and the Intention, Attention, Attitude (IAA) triaxiomatic model. Subsequent chapters discuss mindfulness-based interventions and mechanisms of change for stress and related clinical conditions including chronic pain, traumatic stress, anxiety and related disorders, and clinical depression. The final chapter reviews possible neural networks and brain mechanisms associated with mindfulness meditation practice. As the research on stress reactivity and mindfulness-based stress reduction continues to proliferate, this book offers readers a single volume covering the most relevant information across this vast terrain. Other available volumes offer in-depth coverage of stress research with little mention of mindfulness and stress reduction. Conversely, many texts on the topic of mindfulness and mindfulness-based interventions do not adequately cover the biopsychosocial processes of stress reactivity.

This book focuses on the assessment and treatment of patients with somatic symptoms, based on biopsychosociospiritual model. Specific assessment skills and treatment techniques are required to approach them effectively. A broad spectrum of knowledge about stress is also needed because stress is closely related to the onset and course of disorders with somatic symptoms. This book consists of four parts. Part 1 'Stress' explores stress, vulnerability, and resilience; intermediate mechanisms between stress and illnesses such as psychoendocrinology and psychoimmunology; the measurement of stress; and the relationship between stress and accidents. Part 2 'Somatization' deals with the concept, mechanisms, assessment, and treatment of somatization. In addition, somatic symptom and related disorders in DSM-5 is included. However, the approach to chronic pain is separately added to this part because pain is a major concern for patients with these disorders. Part 3 'Specific physical disorders' mainly deals with common and distressing functional physical disorders as well as major physical disorders. Therapeutic approach for individuals at risk of coronary heart disease is also included. Part 4 'Religion, spirituality and psychosomatic medicine' emphasizes the importance of a biopsychosociospiritual perspective in an approach for patients with somatic symptoms, especially depressed patients with physical diseases and patients with terminal illnesses because of the growing need for spirituality in such patients. This book explores stress and a variety of issues relevant to the assessment and treatment of disorders with somatic symptoms in terms of biopsychosociospiritiual perspectives. It will be of interest to researchers and healthcare practitioners dealing with stress, health and mental health.

This expert compendium surveys the current state of military psychology across the branches of service at the clinical, research, consulting, and organizational levels. Its practical focus examines psychological adjustment pre- and post-deployment, commonly-encountered conditions (e.g., substance abuse), and the promotion of well-being, sleep, mindfulness, and resilience training. Coverage pays particular attention to uses of psychology in selection and assessment of service personnel in specialized positions, and training concerns for clinicians and students choosing to work with the military community. Chapters also address topics of particular salience to a socially conscious military, including PTSD, sexual harassment and assault, women's and LGBT issues, suicide prevention, and professional ethics. Among the specific chapters topics covered: * Military deployment psychology: psychologists in the forward environment. * Stress and resilience in married military couples. * Assessment and selection of high-risk operational personnel: processes, procedures, and underlying theoretical constructs. * Understanding and addressing sexual harassment and sexual assault in the US military. * Virtual reality applications for the assessment and treatment of PTSD. * Plus international perspectives on military psychology from China, Australia, India, and more. Grounding its readers in up-to-date research and practice, Military Psychology will assist health psychologists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and clinical social workers in understanding and providing treatment for military populations, veterans, and their families, as well as military psychologists in leadership and consulting positions.

This valuable resource prepares graduate-level students in social work and other helping professions to provide integrated behavioral health services in community-based health and mental healthcare settings. Responding to the increasing prevalence of behavioral health issues in the general U.S. population and the resulting additional responsibilities for social workers and health professionals, this textbook describes the latest evidence-based practices and interventions for common behavioral health disorders as well as issues related to suicide, violence, substance use, and trauma. Detailed case studies help illustrate the effects of a range of interventions, inviting readers to consider how best to implement behavioral health assessment and treatment practices that are evidence-based, trauma-informed, and recovery-oriented. In addition to outlining integrated behavioral health service models and assessment tools, chapters address specific topics such as: Public health approaches to addressing interpersonal violence Intersections of social, behavioral, and physical health Achieving recovery and well-being from behavioral health disorders Motivating clients to achieve and maintain recovery from addiction Stage-based treatments for substance use disorders Cognitive behavioral approaches to treating anxiety and depressive disorders Evidence-based approaches to treating the effects of trauma and PTSD Integrated Behavioral Health Practice equips graduate students and health professionals alike to provide sensitive and informed interprofessional care for patients and families while consistently engaging in practices that emphasize recovery and well-being.

This book offers a radically different perspective on the topic of health inequity. Carey, Tai, and Griffiths use Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) to deconstruct current approaches to understanding, investigating, and addressing problems of health inequity. In the book, the authors propose that health inequity is not a problem per se. Disrupted control, they argue, is the problem that needs to be addressed. From this perspective, research, policy, and health practices directed at addressing health inequity in isolation will offer only partial solutions to the problems created by disrupted control. Addressing problems of disrupted control directly, however, has the potential to entirely resolve issues that are created by health inequity. The authors have extensive clinical and research experience in a wide range of contexts, including: cross-cultural settings; rural, remote, and underserved communities; community mental health settings; prisons; schools; and psychiatric wards. Drawing on these diverse experiences, the authors describe how adopting a Perceptual Control Theory perspective might offer promising new directions for researchers and practitioners who have an interest in addressing issues of inequity and social justice. With a Foreword written by Professor Neil Gilbert this book will provide fresh insights for academics, practitioners, and policymakers in the fields of public health, psychology, social policy, and healthcare.

This book applies the concept of cultural safety to the field of health psychology in a US context as a means to achieve health equity. First developed in New Zealand by Maori midwives, cultural safety can be understood as both a philosophy and a way of working within a social model of health as an alternative approach to understanding health and illness. Health, social, and human service professionals are at the forefront of interactions with a range of people who often experience disparities in health and social outcomes. In thirteen chapters, the authors explore the social determinants of health; the practices and pitfalls of intercultural communication; and community capacity, resilience, and strengths as correctives to discourses of deficiency. The book concludes with a comparative look at cultural safety in different national contexts, and a discussion of the value of critical reflective practice. Complete with chapter objectives, scenarios, suggested readings and films, and questions for critical thinking, this book is an invaluable resource for students and practitioners alike in health psychology and related fields, and a vital contribution to the literature on cultural safety.

This book explores social constructionism and the language of mental distress. Mental health research has traditionally been dominated by genetic and biomedical explanations that provide only partial explanations. However, process research that utilises qualitative methods has grown in popularity. Situated within this new strand of research, the authors examine and critically assess some of the different contributions that social constructionism has made to the study of mental distress and to how those diagnosed are conceptualized and labeled. This will be an invaluable introduction and source of practical strategies for academics, researchers and students as well as clinical practitioners, mental health professionals, and others working with mental health such as educationalists and social workers.

This comprehensive revision of the invaluable reference presents a rigorous survey of pain and palliative care phenomena across the lifespan and across disciplines. Grounded in the biopsychosocial viewpoint of its predecessor, it offers up-to-date understanding of assessments and interventions for pain, the communication of pain, common pain conditions and their mechanisms, and research and policy issues. In keeping with the current public attention to painkiller use and misuse, contributors discuss a full range of pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches to pain relief and management. And palliative care is given expanded coverage, with chapters on interventive, ethical, and spiritual concerns. * Pain, intercultural communication, and narrative medicine. * Assessment of pain: tools, challenges, and special populations. * Persistent pain in the older adult: practical considerations for evaluation and management. * Acute to chronic pain: transition in the post-surgical patient. * Evidence-based pharmacotherapy of chronic pain. * Complementary and integrative health in chronic pain and palliative care. * The patient's perspective of chronic pain.* Disparities in pain and pain care. This mix of evolving and emerging topics makes the Second Edition of the Handbook of Pain and Palliative Care a necessity for health practitioners specializing in pain management or palliative care, clinical and health psychologists, public health professionals, and clinicians and administrators in long-term care and hospice.

This interdisciplinary book explores both the connections and the tensions between sociological, psychological, and biological theories of exhaustion. It examines how the prevalence of exhaustion - both as an individual experience and as a broader socio-cultural phenomenon - is manifest in the epidemic rise of burnout, depression, and chronic fatigue. It provides innovative analyses of the complex interplay between the processes involved in the production of mental health diagnoses, socio-cultural transformations, and subjective illness experiences. Using many of the existing ideologically charged exhaustion theories as case studies, the authors investigate how individual discomfort and wider social dynamics are interrelated. Covering a broad range of topics, this book will appeal to those working in the fields of psychology, sociology, medicine, psychiatry, literature, and history.

The healing power of the bond between men and dogs is explored in this unique book. Three important themes emerge: attachment, loss, and continued bonds with canine companions for males across the life span and from various contextual backgrounds. The contributors replace common assumptions with needed context pertaining to men's emotions and relationships, starting with the impact of gender norms on attachment, and including robust data on how canine companionship may counter Western culture socialization. The chapters engage readers with details pertaining to ways in which dogs help men develop stable, caring relationships, process feelings, and cope with stress - within a variety of environments including home, school and treatment programs for veterans, prisoners, and youth. The book also address men's loss of companion animals, and the need for building new ways of sustaining the memory and meaning of the bond in males' lives, referred to as a "continuing bond." From these various vantage points, therapeutic insights and relevant findings bring a new depth of understanding to this compelling topic. Included in the coverage: Masculine gender role conflict theory, research, and practice: implications for understanding the human-animal bond in males' lives. At-risk youth and at-risk dogs helping one another. An examination of human-animal interaction as an outlet for healthy masculinity in prison. Exploring how the human-animal bond affects men's relational capacity to make and sustain meaningful attachment bonds with both human and animal companions .< Older adults and companion animals: physical and psychological benefits of the bond. Continuing the bonds with animal companions: implications for men grieving the loss of a dog. Probing the deeper concepts behind "man's best friend," Men and Their Dogs provides a rich clinical understanding of this timeless bond, and should be of special interest to health psychologists, clinical psychologists, academicians, social workers, nurses, counselors, life coaches and dog lovers.

This unique volume advances the literature on sleep and health by illuminating the impacts of family dynamics on individuals' quality and quantity of sleep. Its lifespan perspective extends across childhood, adolescence, adulthood and older age considering both phenomena of individual development and family system dynamics, particularly parent-child and marital relationships. It extends, as well, to the broader contexts of social disparities in sleep as a significant health behavior. Emerging concepts and practical innovations include ancestral roots of sleep in family contexts, sleep studies as a lens for understanding family health, and methodologies, particularly the use of actigraphy technology, for studying sleep patterns in individuals and families. This rich area of inquiry holds significant keys to understanding a vital human behavior and its critical role in physical, psychological, and relational health and wellbeing. Among the topics covered: * Sleep and development: familial and sociocultural considerations. * Relationship quality: implications for sleep quality and sleep disorders. * Couple dynamics and sleep quality in an international perspective. * Family influences on sleep: comparative and historical-evolutionary perspectives. * Sociodemographic, psychosocial, and contextual factors in children's sleep. * Dynamic interplay between sleep and family life: review and directions for future research. Family Contexts of Sleep and Health Across the Life Course will advance the work of researchers and students in the fields of population health, family demography and sociology, sleep research and medicine, human development, neuroscience, biobehavioral health, and social welfare, as well as that of policymakers and health and human services practitioners.

This book aims at shifting the emphasis from a general vision of gender-based violence to a more opaque, yet equally destructive one, that related to "proximity violence". The first type of violence is exercised in multiple situations and in the generality of relationships experienced by people involving others who are both strangers to and intimate with each other. Proximity violence provides and includes a fiduciary kind of "proximity", of "dependent intimacy", where the trust that the victim places in the other (her tormentor) favours the exercise of violence itself, allowing it to take place, thus making it practically imperceptible when not actually normal, in extreme cases. In turn, this confidence is comparable to "a veil of Maja" which, in conditions of vulnerability typical of victims, attenuates the consequences of the violence undergone or the omens of what becomes violent action. The conceptual triad: proximity violence, vulnerability, resistance-resilience is explored here, in the three main chapters and in the details aimed at identifying, in the final chapter, the mutual interconnections. This book will be of particular interest and use to undergraduate and graduate students of sociology and gender studies

The purpose of this volume is to describe the impact of the increased demand for flexibility on employees and its impact on their individual work life trajectories and health. The volume offers concrete examples of interventions aimed to find innovative ways of sustainable work careers for today's workers. We focus on the school to work transition, job insecurity, job loss and re-employment and retirement. The interventions described offer strategies for implementing support in employment contracts, increasing preparedness of individual employees with public education programs or developing work arrangements and support systems in work organizations.

This contributed volume is a real "who is who" in Latin American psychology. Edited by the most prominent psychology researcher alive in the region, the book presents a comprehensive panorama of psychology in Latin America as a science, as a profession and as a way of improving the quality of life of individuals and communities. Despite its achievements, Latin American psychology is little known by the international psychological community. In order to fill this gap, Dr. Ruben Ardila has invited the most important researchers and practitioners in the region to present an overview of psychology as both a profession and a research field in Latin America in the following areas: * Scientific research * Professional issues * Clinical and health psychology * Developmental psychology * Educational and school psychology * Organizational and work psychology * Social psychology * Community psychology * Legal and forensic psychology Psychology in Latin America - Current Status, Challenges and Perspectives seeks to place Latin American psychology on the map of international psychology, and by doing so it aims to foster cooperation between researchers, practitioners and students from the region with its peers from all over the world.

This Handbook provides a broad and comprehensive overview of psychological research on alcohol consumption. It explores the psychological theories underpinning alcohol use and misuse, discusses the interventions that can be designed around these theories, and offers key insight into future developments within the field. A range of international experts assess the unique factors that contribute to alcohol-related behaviour as differentiated from other health-related behaviours. They cover the theory and context of alcohol consumption, including possible implications of personality type, motivation and self-regulation, and cultural and demographic factors. After reviewing the evidence for psychological theories and predictors as accounts for alcohol consumption, the book goes on to focus on external influences on consumption and interventions for reducing alcohol consumption, including those based on purchasing and consumption behaviour, technologies such as personalised feedback apps, and social and media phenomena such as "Dry January" and "Hello Sunday Morning". It brings together cutting-edge contemporary research on alcohol consumption in childhood and adolescence, including topics such as managing offers or drinks, "pre-drinking", online identities, how children develop their beliefs about alcohol and how adolescents discuss alcohol with their parents. The book also offers a rounded presentation of the tensions involved in debates around the psychological impacts of alcohol use, discussing its role in helping people to socialise and unwind; as well as recognising the possible negative impacts on health, education and relationships. This book will be of interest to academics, policymakers, public health officials, practitioners, charities and other stakeholders interested in understanding how alcohol affects people psychologically. This book will also be a key resource for students and researchers from across the social sciences.

Focusing on two central themes--the psychobiological evolution from youth to adult and the effects of drugs on the developing central nervous system--this important reference elucidates the mechanisms of chemical dependency in adolescents. Its multidisciplinary coverage analyzes addiction across major domains of human functioning against the backdrop of hormonal, cognitive, and other changes that accompany the transition to adulthood. Chapters discuss legal as well as illicit drugs, examine age-related social contexts, and present the latest findings on links between drug use and mental disorders. Throughout, the contributors make clear that education is more valuable to understanding--and preventing--substance abuse than are prohibition and zero-tolerance thinking. Included among the topics: Cognitive development, learning, and drug use. Neurobiology of the action of drugs of abuse. Findings in adolescents with substance dependence based on neuroimaging tests. Alcohol abuse in adolescents: relevance of animal models. Effects of chronic drug abuse on the chronobiology of sleep in adolescents. Neurological and cognitive disorders arising from the chronic use of drugs of abuse. The multiple lenses for understanding its subject and the sensitivity with which causal nuances are treated make Neuroscience of Drug Abuse in Adolescence an invaluable resource for clinical and child psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and addiction counselors.

This book explores the social psychological aspects of trans women's experiences of living with HIV in the UK. Drawing on theories from social psychology, the author provides a fine-grained analysis of the EXTRA Study - one of the first in-depth empirical studies of trans women's experiences of living with HIV in the UK. Trans Women and HIV: Social Psychological Perspectives examines issues of identity, threat and coping among trans women - a key population in the HIV epidemic - and presents a model for describing and predicting health outcomes in this population. Underpinned by the Health Adversity Risk Model, this book examines the role of psychological constructs, such as identity, risk and stigma, in behaviour and psychological wellbeing. This informative and thought-provoking text is an invaluable resource for scholars, clinicians and students working in the fields of HIV and trans health.

This book explores the long-term outcomes of severe and ongoing trauma-particularly complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD)-from phenomenological and cognitive perspectives. For example, C-PTSD can result in impairments at the body-schema level. In order to survive, trauma victims may conduct their lives at the body-image level, thus producing a mismatch between body schema and body image. In turn, as in the case of somatoparaphrenia and body integrity identity disorder, this incongruity can result in body disownership, which will affect long-term outcomes of severe and ongoing trauma.