Critical Issues in Clinical and Health Psychology

'...the book proved to be interesting and helpful in its illustration of approaches and ways of understanding distress and difficulty' -- Simon Easton & Maggie Linnell * Psychology Learning and Teaching * This book extends the ongoing discussion on critical approaches within clinical and health psychology. In particular, it emphasises the need to consider the importance of social and cultural factors in understanding health, illness and disability. With detailed examination of a wide range of empirical studies it demonstrates the vibrancy of contemporary critical psychological research Michael Murray Keele University This book provides an original overview of areas within health and clinical psychology that are frequently overlooked in other textbooks. It is distinctive in three major ways: first, it takes an explicitly critical approach, and therefore locates our current psychological understandings of issues within health and clinical psychology within their broader social and cultural contexts. Second, it considers both physical and mental health simultaneously, which is a major strength. Third, it is unique in its scope and focus. In achieving these distinctive features, this text competently draws on up-to-date research and literature across a range of disciplines and fields in an accessible and engaging manner. The first three chapters set the scene well and provide a strong conceptual background for subsequent chapters on culture, socioeconomic status, gender and sexuality. Considerations of disability are threaded throughout all of the chapters, and this enables disability to be understood with greater insight in a much more integrated way than is usual in such texts. The book concludes with a chapter providing an informative and accessible overview of research methods that are commonly employed in critical approaches in these fields. Research issues are also considered and woven usefully throughout the text, with in-depth examples of specific research projects on relevant topics provided across the chapters. These will be highly beneficial for students, researchers and practitioners, as they link research methods, current knowledge (and knowledge construction) to implications for theory and practise in health and clinical psychology. I have no doubt this book will be extremely valuable students, academics, and practitioners working in health and clinical psychology; but is also likely to be highly useful to others working in health-related professions. I personally think it should be a must-read for all those studying and working within the health psychology field! Dr Antonia Lyons Massey University, New Zealand