Psychology

Psychology as a behavioral health discipline is the key to the biopsychosocial practice, and plays a major role in understanding the concept of health and illness. The clinical role of psychologists as health providers is diverse with the varying areas of care giving (primary, secondary and tertiary care) and a variety of subspecialties. Overall, psychologists assess, diagnose, and treat the psychological problems and the behavioral dysfunctions resulting from, or related to physical and mental health. In addition, they play a major role in the promotion of healthy behavior, preventing diseases and improving patients’ quality of life. They perform their clinical roles according to rigorous ethical principles and code of conduct. This article describes and discusses the significant role of clinical health psychology in the provision of health care, following a biopsychosocial perspective of health and illness. Professional and educational issues have also been discussed.

Advances in psychological, medical, and physiological research have led to a new way of thinking about health and illness. This is reflected in the biopsychosocial model that views health and illness as the product of a combination of factors including biological characteristics (e.g. genetic predisposition), behavioral factors, (e.g. lifestyle, stress, health beliefs) and social conditions (e.g. cultural influences, family relationships and social support). This conceptualization of health and illness has many scientific and practical benefits. At the top of this list is the fact that people can reduce their risk of developing major medical problems, receive more effective treatment, and reduce their health care cost when they seek treatment from an interdisciplinary team including behavioral health providers.

Overall, the biopsychosocial model reflects the belief that biological, psychological, and social factors interact in an interdependent or systemic way to maintain health or cause illness.1 This approach (biopsychosocial paradigm) has become universal, and has been endorsed and adopted by the World Health Organization. Psychology as the science of behavior and mental processes emphasizes training and knowledge about such aspects (e.g. development over the lifespan, learning, motivations, experiences, emotions, cognition, social behavior and attitudes, personality etc).