PSYA02H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Psychosomatic Medicine, Biofeedback, Endorphins

• School: UTSC
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYA02H3
• Professor: Ainsley Lawson

Document Summary

Illness: stress can increase our chances of becoming ill, but illness can also affect us psychologically. Sickness response: the sickness response is an evolutionary adaptation to illness, withdrawal from activity. Less energy spend on physical activity, more energy on fighting infection: appetite loss. Less risk of spreading disease: psychological problems can activate the sickness response. Stress: depression, psychological effects on symptoms, we can be more or less attentive to symptoms of physical illness. Some individuals are more attentive than others: most individuals are more attentive when bored, the attentiveness has consequences, more attentiveness --> more pain, more attentiveness correlates with negativity in other domains. Less attentiveness --> delay seeking treatment: psychosomatic illness, sometimes we are so psychologically attentive to illness that we can produce or exacerbate physical illnesses, psychosomatic illness -- an interaction between mind and body that can produce illness. Inconvenient: painful, when there are many treatments involved, particularly problematic from older patients, many medications, memory deterioration.