Counseling for Health

Abstract

Good health and chronic diseases exist essentially as matters of habit as well as context in how people routinely go about the business of everyday living. Recently the crucial roles of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors in health and disease have been recognized, giving rise to the new fields of health psychology and behavioral medicine. The growing complexities involved yield a host of conceptual, methodological, and clinical problems. Examples include narrow definitions of health and disease, abuse of statistical significance testing in research, and confusing conceptualizations of chronic stress. To illustrate treatment possibilities, several ongoing broadly based intervention programs in the cardiovascular disease area are discussed. The many ways in which counseling psychologists might participate in problem areas in the health field clearly offer exciting challenges and opportunities.