Presentation Thematic section

Psychology in the hospital context

Abstract

The inclusion of Psychology into the health context dates back to 1910s. In 1911, the American Psychological Association held discussions regarding the relationship between Psychology and medical education and practice (Winett, King, & Altman, 1989). Traditionally, a clinical intervention model that encompassed Hospital Psychology has been adopted by this field, including in Brazil, where academic research on this topic began in the 1980s (Camon, 1984; Romano, 1990). However, changes in the understanding of the relationship between health and disease, with consequent changes in the proposals concerning the professional practice and role of psychologists, go beyond the individualized clinical care model. There have been changes since the organization of the field of Health Psychology in the 1970s (Matarazzo, 1980), along with the development of directly related fields, such as Pediatric Psychology (Crepaldi, Linhares, & Perosa, 2006; Robert & Steele, 2009), Psycho-oncology (Kazak et al., 2007), and Psychoneuroimmunology (Segerström, 2012; Slavich & Cole, 2013). All of these fields depend on the interaction of knowledge derived from branches of Biology (Epigenetics and Neurosciences), Ecology (physical and social environments), and Health and Development (learning, behavior, physical, mental, and social well-being) from a Life Cycle Science perspective (Braveman & Barclay, 2009; Dich et al., 2015; Miller, Chen, & Parker, 2011; Shonkoff, Garner, The Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care, & Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 2012). They also depend on the Developmental Psychopathology (Rutter & Sroufe, 2000), Health Psychology, Cognitive Science, Public Health, and Social Sciences, i.e., all those included in Human Development Sciences (Sameroff, 2010; Shonkoff et al., 2012).