ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the relationships between wellbeing and place in ways that speak directly to the concerns of policy-makers. It explores how modern culture in countries such as the United Kingdom may impact on wellbeing. The book examines the spa as a therapeutic landscape but then opens a more critical examination through the relations of gender, the body and identity and offers a more trenchant critique of wider societal shifts in self-care as regulation of the body. It describes the historical trajectories of different conceptual engagements within geographies of health with the notion of wellbeing. The book develops considerations of wellbeing at different stages in the life-course in more depth. It examines the connections between environmental volunteering, green spaces and personal wellbeing.
