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Critical Health Psychology

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The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology

Abstract

Health psychology is concerned with applying psychological knowledge to all aspects of physical health and illness. Traditionally dominated by positivist approaches, in recent years critical perspectives have been increasingly employed. These focus on understandings of health and illness as socially, culturally, politically and historically situated and contributing to enhanced health and well-being. Critical health psychology approaches are sensitive to issues of power and benefit from theoretical and methodological pluralism. Key areas in critical health psychology include exploring people’s experiences of health and illness; working with people in marginalised or vulnerable groups to provide insights; achieving change and social justice in communities through interventions and activism; engaging with arts-based approaches to researching health and illness; examining how health is understood in everyday life; and highlighting how the physical, psychosocial and economic environments in which we live dramatically influence our health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Antonia C. Lyons & Kerry Chamberlain

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  1. Antonia C. Lyons
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  2. Kerry Chamberlain
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  1. School of Social Sciences, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK

    Brendan Gough

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Lyons, A.C., Chamberlain, K. (2017). Critical Health Psychology. In: Gough, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51018-1_26

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