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Life events and health

from Psychology, health and illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2014

By
Tirril Harris
Edited by
Susan Ayers ,
Andrew Baum ,
Chris McManus ,
Stanton Newman ,
Kenneth Wallston ,
John Weinman  and
Robert West
Tirril Harris
Affiliation:
St. Thomas' Hospital Campus
Susan Ayers
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Andrew Baum
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Chris McManus
Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School
Stanton Newman
Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Kenneth Wallston
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
John Weinman
Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's
Robert West
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London
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Summary

Introduction

The notion of life events adversely affecting health is deeply embedded in popular consciousness. However among theorists there have been interesting variations. Some early thinkers pursued general theories involving homeostasis, viewing disease in terms of ‘illness as a whole’. The best known were Cannon's (1932) fight–flight reaction and Selye's (1956) general adaptation syndrome. These detailed a number of biological responses to environmental demands, presenting them as an orchestrated pattern, almost regardless of the specific nature of these demands. These generalized patterns included responses which were easy to measure in early psychological laboratories, such as heart rate or sweating, and this may partly have accounted for the interest shown in this model of illness. Others pursued theories involving more specificity, believing that particular disorders arise from specific circumstances. During the 1950s this was accepted by followers of Franz Alexander and the school of psychosomatic medicine. Another example was Flanders Dunbar's influential set of ideas that specific personality types were more vulnerable to certain illnesses (Dunbar, 1954). The specificity considered nearly always involved the person's underlying attitude rather than the specific way the environment impinged in the form of a life event. However more recent research has suggested the value of examining the latter in relation to particular health outcomes and this chapter aims to convey this perspective (see also ‘Personality and health’ and ‘Stress and health’).

Life events, difficulties and meaning

One important difference between various perspectives on stress involves what may be called their conceptual level of stress analysis.

Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 128 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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