Aims

- to deepen the knowledge concerning the links between the psychological and social functioning of a person and his health.
- to initiate the students in the theoretical and empirical research and in clinical interventions in the field of health psychology

Main themes

1. Recall of the range of application of health psychology and of the levels of intervention (primary prevention, curative intervention, rehabilitation, coaching in situation of crisis or in chronic diseases) according to the physiological systems concerned (cardio-vascular, respiratory, neurological, endocrine, motor,...)
2. Account of a) the contributions of social psychology in the field of behaviour and health; b) the psychophysiological aspects in the relation behaviour/health; c) the epidemiological aspects of the psychosomatic diseases.
3. Development of the theoretical models, of the empirical research and of the kind of interventions in specific fields, as for example: theories, research and interventions in the field of SIDA prevention, psychological intervention in breath disorders such as asthma, coaching of patients with chronic pain, palliative care and psychological coaching of patients, etc.

Content and teaching methods

N. Van Broeck : health psychology in child, relation with pediatric psychology and behavioural pediatrics. In a first part, the course will cover this field, from the prevention activities up to the rehabilitation. In a second part, some typical applications will be tackled to illustrate the theoretical bases and the models of intervention.
P. Philippot : Question of the compliance of the patient to the treatment. How to increase this compliance? The question is particularly relevant when one knows that in the best case, one person out of two will comply with the treatment prescribed by the doctor. The course will particularly lean on the theoretical model of adhesion developed by Howard Leventhal. Reference will also be maid to the current research in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine.
O. Luminet : will speak about optimism, emotional intelligence and alexithymia. These three variables currently hold the attention of many researchers for their relations with the vulnerability to illness or with health protection. For each of them the theoretical grounds, the empirical data and the tools of measures will be tackled.
B. Rimé : Question of the perception of the body. In the perception of the outside world, other people can draw our attention on some event in the many signals of the environment and inform us on their nature, their range ou their meaning. But it is not the same for the perception of the body: the internal signals are mainly private signals. Our skills of detection, of decoding and of interpretation are thus reduced. Nevertheless, these signals should allow us to know if we are hungry, if we are moved, if we are sick... How do we manage?

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