The new edition of Health Psychology is the perfect introduction to this rapidly developing field. Throughout the book, the psychological processes that shape health-related behaviors, and affect core functions such as the immune and cardiovascular systems, are clearly explained. These relationships provide the foundation for psychological interventions which can change cognition, perception and behavior, thereby improving health. The book is split into five sections, and builds to provide a comprehensive overview of the field: the biological basis of health and illness stress and health coping resources: social support and individual differences motivation and behavior relating to patients Extensively revised to include new material on behavioral change, the role of stress, resilience and social support, recovery from work, and the care of people with chronic disease, the book also includes a range of features which highlight key issues, and engage readers in applying what we have learned from research. This is essential reading for any undergraduates studying this exciting field for the first time, and the perfect primer for those embarking on postgraduate study.

The new edition of Health Psychology is the perfect introduction to this rapidly developing field. Throughout the book, the psychological processes that shape health-related behaviours, and affect core functions such as the immune and cardiovascular systems, are clearly explained. These relationships provide the foundation for psychological interventions which can change cognition, perception and behaviour, thereby improving health. The book is split into five sections, and builds to provide a comprehensive overview of the field: the biological basis of health and illness stress and health coping resources: social support and individual differences motivation and behaviour relating to patients Extensively revised to include new material on behavioural change, the role of stress, resilience and social support, recovery from work, and the care of people with chronic disease, the book also includes a range of features which highlight key issues, and engage readers in applying what we have learned from research. This is essential reading for any undergraduates studying this exciting field for the first time, and the perfect primer for those embarking on postgraduate study.

In today's sick world, the application of psychological research and methods to issues about and around health could not be more important. Health psychologists pursue ambitious goals, including: the promotion and maintenance of health; the prevention and management of illness; the improvement of healthcare systems; and the formulation of rational health policies. And they seek to understand dizzyingly difficult questions, such as: how do people adapt to chronic illness? What factors influence healthy eating? How is stress linked to heart disease? And, why do so many patients ignore medical advice and prescriptions? As research in and around health psychology burgeons as never before, this new four-volume collection from Routledge's acclaimed Critical Concepts in Psychology series meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of literature. Edited by two leading scholars, the collection gathers foundational and canonical work, together with innovative and cutting-edge applications and interventions. With a full index, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editors, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Health Psychology will be particularly useful as a one-stop database allowing scattered and often fugitive material to be easily located. It will also be welcomed as a crucial tool permitting rapid access to less familiar-and sometimes overlooked-texts. For researchers and advanced students, it is a vital one-stop research and reference resource.