Review of The Psychobiology of Chronic Headache.

Reviews the book, The Psychobiology of Chronic Headache by Donald A. Bakal (1982). Bakal brings to bear eight years of clinical and research experience in an attempt to clarify the nature of chronic headache and to elucidate a primarily psychology-based approach to its treatment. Central to the book is Bakal's reconceptualization of chronic headache to incorporate what he calls "psychobiological factors." The psychobiological approach would appear to be a close cousin of other approaches that have recently enjoyed increasing popularity in psychological circles: namely, the holistic approach and the behavioural medicine approach. The psychobiological model includes cognitive, behavioural, physiological, and biochemical components, and each of these areas is reviewed in relation to chronic headache. One very positive aspect of Bakal's reconceptualization is the change in emphasis from how psychological stress may cause headache symptoms (which many patients deny) to a recognition that psychological stress (or in Bakal's terminology, distress) may instead result from headache symptoms, with a subsequent further exacerbation of symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Medical psychology: Contributions to behavioral medicine.

Reviews the book, Medical psychology: Contributions to behavioral medicine edited by Charles K. Prokop and Laurence A. Bradley (1981). This book is another generally commendable entry on a growing list of books that overview the field of Medical Psychology, Health Psychology, or Behavioral Medicine. The book is divided into four sections: An Introduction, Assessment of Medical Disorders, Treatment and Prevention of Medical Disorders, and Special Topics in Medical Psychology and Behavioral Medicine. The second and third sections account for the bulk of the volume and comprise critical reviews of psychological approaches to assessment and treatment of specific health problems. Both assessment and treatment are mentioned by the editors as areas in which medical psychology has made unique contributions to behavioral medicine. Other issues described as important contributions--issues such as prevention and evaluation--are covered only briefly. This book is a highly useful source book. It is especially valuable to the applied researcher or practitioner who works with several departments in a medical school or other health setting. For such individuals, this volume can provide research and treatment programs in the specialty areas represented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Behavioral Medicine: Changing Health Lifestyles.

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)     

Behavioral "Medicine" and the Collaboration Model of Knapp and Vandecreek.

Knapp and Vandecreek's (1981) article provided a helpful outline of some ethical and legal considerations of the health psychologist. Their recommendations regarding "physician collaboration" (p. 679) in the psychological management of physiological health concerns lead to practical problems that require further ethical and legal inquiry. Some concerns arising from efforts to apply the collaboration model are considered here: interaction with physicians who are minimally sophisticated about the psychological aspects of illness; collaboration with physicians who routinely equate patient's health psychology concerns only with emotional disorder and consign these individuals to the psychologist; and whether health psychologists can select an accurate diagnosis for conditions that are not psychological in nature. Health psychologists may ultimately resolve these issues as the professional identity of behavioral "medicine" and its practitioners develops. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Behavioral health: A handbook of health enhancement and disease prevention.

Reviews the book, Behavioral health: A handbook of health enhancement and disease prevention edited by Joseph D. Matarazzo, Sharlene M. Weiss, J. Alan Herd, Neal E. Miller, and Stephen M. Weiss (1984). The term "behavioral health" is defined in this book as an interdisciplinary field dedicated to promoting a philosophy of health that stresses individual responsibility in the application of behavioral and biomedical science knowledge and techniques to the maintenance of health and the prevention of illness and dysfunction by a variety of self-initiated or shared activities. Overall, this book is a superb contribution to the field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Minding the body: Clinical uses of somatic awareness.

Reviews the book, Minding the body: Clinical uses of somatic awareness by Donald A. Bakal (see record 1999-02384-000). Bakal explains his book as one that "provides a unique framework to help individuals understand what they can do within themselves to maintain health and to maximize their chances of recovery should they become ill". By the reviewers reading of the book, this might be expressed more accurately by saying that the book "provides a framework to help the psychologist, physician, or other health care practitioner to understand an underappreciated dimension of health and well-being that lies within the clients' sphere of control." This book is not for the lay person. It points the professional person in the direction of somatic therapies by providing a wealth of references, case examples, and specific target populations for application of techniques related to somatic awareness. For a clinician wishing to expand and integrate somatic therapies into his or her practice, the book is wanting in practical application, but hopefully will stimulate the interested clinician to further explore the wealth of books written on the somatic therapies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overview of special issue.

In the fall of 1983 Michael Lacroix (CP Associate Editor) asked me to "guest-edit" a special issue of Canadian Psychology devoted to the behavioural medicine and health psychology domains. I agreed, and the current issue is the result. The articles and book reviews in this issue exemplify the multiple relationships between psychology and medicine. While the diversity of subject matter in this issue may appear chaotic, the underlying concept is coherent. Human beings can suffer from a variety of problems bounded by their skins but dependent upon biochemistry and life history. Understanding the development of those problems, diagnosing them, and treating them can be enhanced by the interaction of psychological knowledge with medical knowledge; and the developing interface between psychology and medicine should make us increasingly cognizant of that reality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Pain and behavioral medicine: A cognitive-behavioral perspective.

Reviews the book, Pain and behavioral medicine: A cognitive-behavioral perspective by Dennis C. Turk, Donald Meichenbaum, and Myles Genest (1983). This book represents the convergence of current interest in two rapidly developing and exciting fields of endeavour for psychologists: behavioural medicine and cognitive-behavioural intervention. The book accepts and more than satisfactorily responds to three challenges: to provide professionals in the health sciences with an overview of the cognitive-behavioural perspective on human functioning; to present the rationale, development, and utilization of cognitive-behavioural techniques in the promotion of health, the prevention of disease, and the treatment of illness; and to present a systematic perspective on the management of pain, including theoretical, research, and clinical issues. The reader with a serious interest in understanding health, and practitioners devoted to enhancing health, would do well to examine this book. No caring health professional involved in pain management, whether psychologist, physician, nurse, or otherwise, should be deficient in the knowledge base and practical procedures described here. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Contributions toward evidence-based psychocardiology: A systematic review of the literature.

Reviews the book, Contributions toward evidence-based psychocardiology: A systematic review of the literature by Jochen Jordan, Benjamin Bardé, and Andreas-Michael Zeiher (see record 2006-13513-000). Reflecting a strong trend in the field towards evidence-based behavioural medicine, 10 systematic reviews of broad areas in psychocardiology are presented. Unfortunately, although the copyright date is 2007, the reviews focus largely on research published more than five years earlier, ignoring what are arguably the largest and most influential clinical trials and observational studies in behavioural medicine to date. The first chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the sociological aspects of the development and course of coronary heart disease (CHD). The final chapter is an examination of cardiac rehabilitation from a health systems analysis perspective. In between, the authors cover various psychological, psychosocial and medical aspects of CHD. The reviewers commend the editors for compiling an ambitious book on an important topic, but lament that its inconsistent approach is unlikely to completely satisfy physicians, behavioral medicine researchers or graduate students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Pediatric and adolescent behavioral medicine: Issues in treatment.

Reviews the book, Pediatric and Adolescent Behavioral Medicine: Issues in Treatment edited by Patrick J. McGrath and Philip Firestone (1983). With recent advances in behavioural medicine more generally, paediatric behavioural medicine has been expanding rapidly during the last decade. At this time, it seems most opportune to integrate notions from psychological and developmental models of treatment with medical treatment models, practice, and services. This book covers a number of childhood and adolescent disorders, including abdominal pain syndrome, asthma, elevated blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and obesity. The issues raised in this edited volume cover a number of important difficulties in the behavioural paediatrics area. Psychologists and other professionals working with difficulties associated with treating paediatric problems in well-child health care facilities will find it very useful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Notes on an evolutionary medicine

OBJECTIVE: Medicine does not have a comprehensive theory of health, ill-health, and disease. Its explanations of disease are firmly rooted in pathological anatomy brought about by infection, intoxication, trauma, and mutations in genes. Because medical concepts have been influenced mainly by classical physics, it is mechanistic, materialistic, deterministic, reductionistic, linear-causal, and strongly biased toward proximate explanations of disease. Of late, many thoughtful persons have attempted to provide medicine with a more comprehensive theory that integrates the documented roles of physical, social, environmental, and psychological factors in the etiology and pathogenesis of ill-health and disease (eg, Refs. 1-3). METHOD: Until very recently (4), no one has clearly pointed out that such a comprehensive theory should be guided by the concepts of evolutionary and organismic biology. Darwin's great theory states that evolution is "driven," but not exclusively so, by natural and sexual selection. Natural selection acts on variants that differ in adaptive capacities. Those capable of adaptation survive to reproduce. Failure to adapt reduces reproductive fitness and success, and leads to injury or death. But this formulation could be expanded to regard ill-health and disease as adaptive failures, whereas health usually may be conceived of as equivalent to adaptive success. Adaptations are determined by many factors-genetic, morphological, physiological, and behavioral. Selective pressures are many and varied. However, social primates are at a selective advantage, and are among the most successful species and varieties. Social behavior (eg, support) seems to enhance the chances of survival and reproductive fitness. Physiological (immunological, metabolic, cardiovascular) and behavioral adaptations are geared specifically for interactions with the environment. Emotions have evolved as ways of matching physiological responses with environmental demands and signaling the organism's state. RESULTS: This study will review aspects of evolutionary theory that would lead to a unified, integrated theory of health, illness, and disease, and to a clearer taxonomy in medicine.     

Policy on insurance.

Comments on the position adopted by APA in negotiating with insurance companies on the subject of reimbursement to psychologists for services rendered under health insurance plans. When outpatient psychotherapy is covered by insurance, a psychologist making an independent determination of the need for psychotherapeutic treatment is, according to the APA resolution, being a "judge of illness in the medical sense" and that the "appropriate inter-professional collaborative relationships" between medicine and psychology is for the medical person to make the determination of psychotherapeutic illness and to decide upon the need for psychological services. We are officially concurring that medicine is within its rights in determining the need for and supervising psychological services, when these services are covered by insurance. The APA position on this insurance issue contravenes previously accepted APA policy which states that, within the scope of ethical practice, a psychologist may function autonomously as a psychotherapist. This has been done without sufficient justification, and certainly without sufficient notice to and discussion by the membership. It behooves APA to defer any further negotiation on this issue until it provides for a full reconsideration of the issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Pure Types are Rare.

Reviews the book, Pure Types Are Rare by Irwin Silverman. This is a provocative book. In it, Silverman, with ambitious abandon, sets out to denude the "medical model of mental illness" of its Emperor's Clothing. Unceremoniously, Silverman strips away the clothing of the medical model: psychiatric diagnoses are unreliable and invalid, labels are applied at the whim of the psychodiagnostician; mental illness bears no resemblance to physical disease, mental "illness" is a myth; biological causes of mental illness do not exist; biological treatments serve only to mask the real social and psychological causes of madness; psychotherapy is no treatment at all, there are no "treatment" principles or methods. What remains after Silverman's assault on the medical model? The medical model as Emperor remains, albeit naked. Silverman views the medical model and the entire mental health enterprise as an Emperor indeed: it is a political ideology that serves to control the socially and economically impoverished. Silverman goes on to offer an alternative to the medical model, a social psychological perspective on madness. He favours a view of madness as a social role which may be adopted by a person in the process of coping with life conflict. Silverman attacks practically all of the important assumptions and practices of psychiatry and clinical psychology. His radical social perspective on mental illness is at such odds with the common psychological perspective that, obviously, most psychologists, be they practitioners or researchers, will not like this book. Silverman insists on too radical a departure from our common beliefs. Despite the reviewer's disagreement with Silverman's radical social perspective on mental illness, he thinks that this is a worthwhile book. While the reviewer disagrees with his premise that clinical practices are exclusively or primarily political in essence, the reviewer does agree that there are essential social and political functions served by our practices. Silverman relentlessly and effectively uncovers important social and political meanings of diagnostic and treatment practices. This, according to the reviewer, is the strength of the book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychological and behavioral aspects of physical disability—A manual for health practitioners.

Reviews the book, Psychological and behavioral aspects of physical disability—A manual for health practitioners by James E. Lindemann (1981). According to the authors indication in the preface, this book is a guide for professionals who work with people with serious physically disabling conditions. It aims to provide information and "how-to" suggestions for evaluation and treatment of physical disabilities. The book focuses on helping people make decisions, acquire skills, and seek experiences that permit them most fully to enjoy the competency and satisfaction of human existence. It is based on the emerging development in behavioral medicine and health psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The health planning predicament.

Reviews the book, The health planning predicament by Victor G. Rodwin (1984). There are many different ways health care can be distributed and paid for. Medical care utilization is an important behavior widely studied by health services researchers and by economists. Planning in health care requires an understanding of the need for services and the mechanisms required to pay for them. In this book, Rodwin presents a thoughtful analysis of the new challenges for health planners in four Western countries. Most Western cultures are guided by the assumption that medical care is good. Thus, most developed countries have increased access to medical care by creating systems for third-party payment of expenses. As a result, the availability of services for underserved groups has greatly improved. In addition, health care costs have steadily increased in most Western countries. A growing number of critics now argue that developed countries spend too much on health care and that ease of access has created new problems, including increased iatrogenic illness and threats to economic solvency. Rodwin addresses these and other questions by comparing health services systems in the United States, France, Canada, and England. Although these four countries have similar cultural and economic characteristics, they differ in the way they distribute health care services. The differences among the systems considered by Rodwin provide for many interesting comparisons of physician behavior, and of patient service utilization. They also provide a new basis for the evaluation of different health care policies. In summary, Victor Rodwin has produced an interesting and readable comparison of health planning in different countries. Despite different approaches to the same problem, all four governments are faced with a health planning predicament. The book is full of interesting insights and may stimulate new thinking about some very serious policy questions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anthroposophic perspectives in primary care

Anthroposophically Extended Medicine (AEM) is a truly integrative healing system. AEM represents an expansion, not an alternative to conventional medicine. Its unique understanding of the interplay among physiological, soul and spiritual processes in healing and illness serves to bridge allopathy with naturopathy, homeopathy, functional/nutritional medicine and other healing systems.     

Review of Law and mental health: International perspectives, Volume 2.

Reviews the book, Law and mental health: International perspectives, Volume 2 edited by David N. Weisstub. Following the 1984 publication of Volume 1, reviewed in CJBS (1986), David Weisstub recently edited a second volume in this series. The publication follows the multidisciplinary lead established in the first volume. It consists of five papers, of which three are legal essays and two are empirical social science literature reviews. The two social science articles would be of interest to more psychologists, but particularly those in forensic and correctional psychology. Unlike the first volume, however, the legally oriented papers do not address the classical "forensic" issues. Instead, they deal more generally with legal aspects of mental health. In preparing a multidisciplinary edition, a reasonable objective given the topic, the editor has convened a collection of articles from various disciplines (law, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, criminology, and sociology) instead of articles that, in themselves, represent an integration of disciplines. Once again, one is left wondering if ever the twain shall meet between law and social science. Nonetheless, the editor, as promised, has put together papers on five current issues that are of international importance to law and to mental health. they deal more generally with legal aspects of mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Behavioral approaches to medicine: Application and analysis.

Reviews the book, Behavioral approaches to medicine: Application and analysis edited by J. Regis McNamara (1979). In this book, McNamara has taken a different perspective, emphasizing the content of behavioral assessment and treatment as it applies to the activities of psychologists and other health professionals in medical settings. McNamara speaks of the interpenetration of behavior modification into medicine, much as one might speak of the use of behavior therapy in schools or of the application of behavioral psychology in prisons. Instead of involving the reader in a discussion of the nuances of definitions of fields such as health psychology or behavioral medicine, McNamara sticks with the idea of applying principles from a familiar area to particular problems that arise in a different area. Thus, the focus of the book is on practical problem-solving and on developing a behavioral conceptualization of health care problems. This book is very useful to the extent that it consistently presents this point of view. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of behavioral medicine.

Reviews the book, Handbook of behavioral medicine by W. Doyle Gentry (1984). This volume, which was years in the writing, is less a handbook than it is a compendium of well-written chapters by outstanding researchers discussing selected important areas in the field of behavioral medicine. These areas include psychosocial factors related to etiology of disease; cardiovascular, immunological, and gastrointestinal disease mechanisms; coping; patient decision-making; compliance; and behavioral and community interventions. This volume is not as inclusive as one would expect from a handbook, neither in thoroughness of literature reviews nor in topic areas covered. However, the chapter topics are well chosen and the book provides a detailed assessment of current work in these important areas. The reviewer found this volume to be impressive because of the high quality of writing and the careful discussion of issues and research in each of these important topic areas. Those wanting to keep informed about conceptual models and research findings in the health psychology and behavioral medicine areas will find this book to be invaluable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)