ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of emotional health on overall well-being. Using traditional medicines, the curandero determined that Angelita’s physical symptoms were caused largely by spiritual and emotional health problems, a longing for the familiar. By focusing on the physical causes of illness, the biomedical model overlooks emotional or psychological determinants that also influence well-being. The chapter also explores emotional health by examining four models used currently in research and practice in the field of health psychology: the biomedical model, the biopsychosocial model, the wellness model, and the ecological model. The wellness model contributed a spiritual dimension to well-being and redefined wellness as an individual’s own assessment of their status, whereas the social ecological model adds the physical environmental determinants as well as the role of health systems and health policy on individual health outcomes. Specifically, positive psychology involves a systematic study of the factors that enhance and maintain an individual’s state of well-being.
