Health Psychology

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Name
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Trisha Duperval Top of Form
Topic 2 Pain
Psychosocial concepts in psychology draw from a combination of psychological and sociology principles. According to Trisha Duperval, it is close to impossible to examine psychological aspects without looping in the social factors that constantly affect them. Pain is a phenomenon that can be examined from different perspectives. Psychologists are usually more interested in the emotional aspect of pain. I think that numerous social factors work in an intricate nature to eventually affect pain perceptions among different people. For instance, beliefs and social attitudes tend to interact with pain processing in the brain (Gamsa, 1994). When individuals allow their minds to constantly be preoccupied with the fear or exaggeration of pain stimuli, they augment this part of the brain into perceiving the pain to be unbearable.
Stephanie Shannon 
Topic 3: Coping
According to Stephanie Shannon, chronic illnesses usually present numerous symptoms that tend to require a multidisciplinary form of management in a bid to ensure that the patients are holistically managed. Most of the symptoms that accompany chronic illnesses are usually unresponsive to standard therapy. I think that the long-term exposure of such patients to medication eventually affects the chemical response of these drugs to the body due to the development of tolerance (Evers et al., 2003). Based on this, it is prudent that psychosocial mechanisms be employed in a bid to seek alternate modalities of managing such symptoms like pain.

Coping is an important strategy that can assist in the reduction or remission of some or most of the symptoms among chronically ill individuals. Coping enables a person to self-regulate the centers in the brain that are responsible for the processing of the symptoms.
Xayvinay Xiong 
Topic 1: Complementary/alternative medicine
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For a long time, western medicine has been maintained with principles that surround the use of pharmaceuticals to manage certain clinical symptoms. On the other hand, alternative medicine focusses on individuals as holistic beings that are seeking to attain optimal body conditions. In Xiong’s opinion, Western medicine has been faulted for its inability to focus on patients wholesomely. For instance, in the management of cancer, the medication used usually has fatal side effects (Barnes, Bloom & Nahin, 2008). Alternative medicine has always been fronted due to its focus on other aspects of health that are always ignored.

References
Barnes, P. M., Bloom, B., & Nahin, R. L. (2008). Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults and children; United States, 2007.
Evers, A. W., Kraaimaat, F. W., Geenen, R., Jacobs, J. W., & Bijlsma, J. W. (2003). Pain coping and social support as predictors of long-term functional disability and pain in early rheumatoid arthritis. Behaviour research and therapy, 41(11), 1295-1310.
Gamsa, A. (1994). The role of psychological factors in chronic pain. I. A half century of study. Pain, 57(1), 5-15.
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