Positive Health Psychology

The history of positive health psychology among different cultures vary greatly. Health psychology has many origins that work in conjunction with one another, making the discipline while a new field, one with old roots. Its combinations include “biology, medicine, physiology, philosophy, and social science. Health psychology interfaces with the fields of epidemiology and public health and contributes to improvements in health by increasing knowledge about how health can best be achieved” (Jones & Bartlett, n.d). Some cultures view health and healing differently to the point where they believe in different remedies to help their people. Different “cultures viewed health and healing differently,” in fact “early Christians prayed for illness

d.).The best example used to describe this affect of emotions on physical health, is how ones heart rates and blood pressure increases during times of fear, anger and other strong emotions.

A huge factor in emotional well-being is the self-esteem, or self- worth perspective, a major contributor to emotional well-being. Generally one who has low self-esteem has difficulty conduction normal tasks for someone in their age group such as interview, teaching, beginning interpersonal relationships, and even being sociable in public places. An individual’s self-esteem can be viewed in the ways one dresses, their form of addressing their counterparts or coworkers, and even their facial expressions and body

According to Lisa G. Aspinwall and Richard G. Tedeschi’s article The Value of Positive Psychology for Healthy Psychology: Progress and Pitfalls in Examining the Relation of Positive Phenomena to Health there are four assumptions being discussed an researched concerning the field of Health Psychology. First, research on optimism, “a generalized expectancy for positive outcomes that appears to be trait-like and predicts how people cope with stress” (Carver, Scheier, Miller, & Fulford, 2009 :303-311) (Rasmussen, Scheier, & Greenhouse, 2009 :239-256). According to the text optimism has been studied to be associated with better coping for patients suffering from serious illnesses such as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and breast cancer. Optimism even influences higher recovery likelihoods for patients undergoing serious medical procedures, creating a positive change in immune system functioning and therefore higher survival rates ( Allison, Guichard Fung, & Gilain,