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Reviews the book, Behavioral Medicine: Changing Health Lifestyles by Park O. Davidson and Sheena M. Davidson (1980). Since 1969, the Banff International Conferences have served as a "window" on the future applications of behaviour modification principles and techniques. Behavioral Medicine: Changing Health Lifestyles is the "report" of that conference. (the reviewer hastens to point out, however, that the Banff Conference reports are much more than a collection of papers presented at the conference itself. They are chapters written specially for publication.) For a number of years there has been an increasing awareness of and concern with the fact that "lifestyle" plays an important role in health and ill health alike. Faulty habits and behaviours such as smoking, alcohol consumption, overeating, lack of exercise, overwork, etc., may play a critical causal role in the development of physical disorders. At the same time, however, changing these behaviours, and maintaining the changes, has quite often proven to be beyond the skills of even the most talented clinician. The present volume addresses this challenge: the application of behavioural principles to the problems of physical health and illness. The chapters are well written and the usual vagaries of an edited book (such as stylistic differences between authors) have been minimized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
