Konteksty i pogranicza - inspiracje dla psychologii zdrowia

Abstract

The article presents the psychology of health as a component of a multidimensional system of the knowledge about a human being. Multidimensionality of the very system suggests contact and permeation of different theoretical and practical contexts constituting an important contribution to understanding health and behaviours connected with health. The very contexts derive from perspectives and theoretical paradigms from not only psychology, but also “borderline” disciplines. Important contexts result from observations of demographic and civilizational processes, related to changes of a technological and cultural nature in the contemporary world, also from transformations happening in man’s natural environment, e.g. evoked by climate changes. The article outlines both theoretical and practical contexts of empirical analyses in the psychology of health. The author specifically concentrates on the analysis of the role of a biopsychosocial model as a meta‑perspective for the analyses under investigation. The practical context constitutes the issue of a widelyunderstood quality of life. In reference to borderline areas of the psychology of health, next to traditional points with such sciences as medicine, sociology and pedagogy, the article points to the need of paying attention to formal‑ organizational and economic contexts of health behaviours and medical care and, thus, relations of the psychology of health with the issue of public health on the one hand, and, the psychology of organization and management, as well as economic psychology on the other. What was considered to be particularly important in the latter case was paying attention to consumer behaviours having clear healthy references because of a progressive commercialization of not only medical services, but also health as such, as well as blur the border between the role of health and beauty standards, and social effectiveness.