Abstrakt: | 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. |