ABSTRACT

Health psychology is one of the newest disciplinary areas of psychology, even though many of its core themes can be traced back to earlier times. It is concerned with the application of psychological methods to understanding human behaviour in the context of health and illness. The most widely used definition of the field has been provided by Matarazzo (1980), who described health psychology as the “aggregate of specific educational, scientific and professional contributions of the discipline of psychology to the promotion and maintenance of health, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the identification of aetiologic and diagnostic correlates of health, illness and related dysfunction”. In the present overview the field of health psychology will be divided into six broad areas which fit well with the range of topics outlined by Matarazzo.