What is Health Psychology?
Health Psychology is a specialty area of clinical psychology focused on providing evidence-based treatment to help individuals cope with chronic health conditions or physical disabilities, adjust to new medical diagnoses, and make lasting changes to improve their health.
Health Psychology services tend to be targeted and are often fairly present- and future-oriented. Treatment goals may focus on building new skills to lower distress relatively quickly, and learning to deploy existing strengths in new ways. Health Psychology services may therefore feel different from some traditional psychotherapy interventions which can be more exploratory in nature.
People see Health Psychologists for a wide range of concerns, from coping with trauma symptoms after a health crisis or hospitalization, learning to conquer phobias that interfere with accessing necessary care, reducing the impact of distressing physical symptoms from new or chronic conditions, to increasing motivation and confidence in making lifestyle changes to improve management of chronic conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes or high blood pressure.
Is Health Psychology right for me?
As with any professional relationship, goodness of fit matters. It is important to understand that you will be addressing the relationship between your physical well-being and your emotional well-being, in the context of one or multiple medical diagnoses.
It may be useful to think of your Health Psychologist as a member of your medical team. It is common for Health Psychologists to maintain active dialogue with your other health providers to ensure that the work you are doing together is complementary and collaborative.
If your goal is to improve your ability to cope with your physical health concerns, and to reduce the negative impact of health concerns on your emotional well-being and day-to-day life, Health Psychology services may be a good fit for your needs.
Interventions
Treatment is evidence-based and tailored to your needs, presenting concerns, and goals. Therapeutic approaches include:
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
Mind-body medicine techniques (mindfulness-based interventions focused on engaging the relaxation response to reduce physical health symptoms)
Existential psychotherapy
Cognitive rehabilitation (CR)
Problem solving therapy (PST)
Motivational interviewing (MI)
Clinical hypnosis for treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Dialectical behavioral therapy skills (DBT)