ABSTRACT
The epigraph from Agnes Grey shows that the biopsychosocial model of health and illness has been part of our heritage for some time. The biopsychosocial model simply reflects the belief that biological, social and psychological factors interact in an interdependent or systemic way in maintaining health or causing illness. When Hippocrates first promoted a scientific approach to medicine and healing in the fourth century bc, his approach combined psychological and physical processes. Theory in health psychology is firmly rooted in a biopsychosocial perspective, and in the words of one prominent health psychologist, 'The central concept in health psychology is stress'. In fact, stress research provides the link between social factors, psychology and biology, making an understanding of the stress process perhaps the most important aspect of health psychology research. Thus stress is defined in terms of the fit between the person and their world, where a lack of fit produces physical or psychological illness, or both.
