Clinical Health Psychology
Clinical health psychology is the area of clinical psychology that applies psychological science to physical health, illness, and the health-care system. It studies how thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and social context contribute to staying healthy, to the onset and course of medical conditions, and to how people cope with illness and treatment. The field is anchored in the biopsychosocial model, which holds that biological, psychological, and social factors jointly shape health and disease.
Definition
Clinical health psychology is the application of clinical psychological theory, assessment, and intervention to the promotion of health, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the understanding of the psychological dimensions of physical disease, framed within a biopsychosocial model of health.
Scope
This area orients the reader to the field as a whole and links to its detailed topics: changing health-related behavior, the psychology of pain and chronic pain, psychological adjustment to medical illness, and health anxiety and somatic symptom presentations. It is a reference overview of concepts, theories, and evidence, not a manual for clinical care or treatment selection.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- How do psychological and social factors influence the onset, course, and outcome of physical illness?
- How do people understand, cope with, and adjust to chronic disease and medical treatment?
- What behavioral and psychological processes drive health-related behavior, and how can they be changed?
- How are psychological distress, pain, and bodily symptoms interrelated in medical settings?
Key concepts
- Health promotion and disease prevention
- Coping and psychological adjustment to illness
- Stress and health
- Adherence to medical treatment
- Quality of life and patient-reported outcomes
- Behavioral medicine
Key theories
- Biopsychosocial model
- Engel's proposal that health and illness arise from the interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors rather than from biology alone; it provides the unifying framework for clinical health psychology.
Mechanisms
Clinical health psychology works across several pathways linking mind and body. Behavioral pathways operate through health-relevant actions such as physical activity, diet, substance use, and adherence to treatment. Cognitive and emotional pathways operate through illness beliefs, appraisal, coping, and distress, which shape how people interpret symptoms and engage with care. These psychological processes interact with biological systems and with the social environment, consistent with the biopsychosocial model, to influence the course of disease and recovery.
Clinical relevance
Clinical health psychology describes how psychological and behavioral factors relate to physical health and how patients adjust to illness; it informs an understanding of patient-reported outcomes, coping, and adherence across medical settings. This entry presents the field as a reference subject and does not provide diagnostic criteria, treatment protocols, or individualized clinical advice.
Evidence & guidelines
The field draws on randomized trials, cohort studies, and systematic reviews of psychological and behavioral interventions in medical populations, alongside foundational theoretical work such as Engel's biopsychosocial model and reviews of adjustment to chronic disease. Detailed evidence is summarized within the individual topic entries.
History
The field grew out of the recognition, articulated by Engel in 1977, that the purely biomedical model was insufficient to explain health and illness, and that psychological and social factors required systematic study. Over subsequent decades, health psychology and behavioral medicine developed as organized disciplines, building an evidence base on adjustment to chronic disease, behavior change, and the psychology of symptoms.
Key figures
- George L. Engel
- Annette L. Stanton
- Karen Glanz
Related topics
Seminal works
- engel-1977
- stanton-2007
Frequently asked questions
- How is clinical health psychology different from clinical psychology in general?
- Clinical psychology addresses mental health and psychological disorders broadly, while clinical health psychology focuses specifically on the psychological dimensions of physical health, medical illness, and the health-care system.
- What is the biopsychosocial model?
- It is the framework, articulated by Engel in 1977, holding that health and disease result from the interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors, and it underpins the whole field of clinical health psychology.