Stress: Perspectives and Processes (Health Psychology)

This text aims to examine the stress phenomenon within a broader framework than health psychology, focusing on the role of psychosocial processes in physical and psychological well-being. In the earlier chapters of the book, the nature of both stress and health is outlined and theoretical perspectives that may have a bearing on how stress can cause illness are considered. The author takes as his starting point the assertion that it is the phenomenological experience of stress that determines the impact of stressful events upon the individual, and he makes a contribution in terms of an integrated account of the cognitive-phenomenological elements of the stress process. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the stress phenomenon from a biopsychosocial perspective and it should be of use to students of health psychology and also to professionals including those in the fields of medicine, occupational psychology and the health professions.