Interviewing in Health Psychology and Medical Settings

Abstract

Psychologists, particularly those with specialty training in clinical health psychology, are employed in a wide variety of healthcare settings. In these settings, they address a wide range of mind-body issues, ranging from health behavior change work to psychotherapy focused on adjustment to often-catastrophic changes in health. This shift away from the centuries-old Cartesian mind-body dualism is succinctly described as the biopsychosocial model (Engel, 1977). This influential paradigm recognizes that the interrelationship between medical, psychological, behavioral, sociocultural, and environmental factors impacts the objective and subjective experiences of health and illness. The dualistic question of whether a patient has a “mental or physical problem” is viewed as an artificial one, as psychologists strive to facilitate an integrative understanding and treatment of psyche and soma. As an extension of the biopsychosocial model, psychologists in healthcare settings are simply health professionals, rather than mental health professionals, in recognition of their participation in improving both the mental and physical health of their patients. They are, in fact, regarded as a central part of the healthcare team in many settings discussed here