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SUZANNE BENNETT JOHNSON, NATHAN W. PERRY, JR., and RONALD H. ROZENSKY (Volume Eds.) Handbook of Clinical Health Psychology: Volume 1, Medical Disorders and Behavioral Applications Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2002, 654 pages. (ISBN 1-55798-909-5, US$69.95 Hardcover)
The goal of the three volume Handbook of Clinical Health Psychology, published by The American Psychological Association, is to describe in detail health psychology's contribution to scientific knowledge and improved health care delivery. The information to be covered makes this series of three handbooks the first comprehensive effort to characterize the field of health psychology. As noted in the series introduction, it does this by describing health psychology's scientific basis, delineating specific techniques and evaluation procedures, and by demonstrating applications of health psychology to the full range of medical diagnoses. This is extremely worthwhile, given how slowly physicians, the patient population, and third-party payers have been to recognize the positive impact that psychological interventions have on health care delivery. This handbook's publication is particularly timely, given the recent reduction of psychological services in many Canadian hospitals.
The first volume in this series is entitled: Medical Disorders and Behavioral Applications. Forthcoming titles in the series are: Volume 2: Disorders of Behavior and Health, and Volume 3: Models and Perspectives in Clinical Health Psychology. Volume 1 focuses on health psychology's contributions to the management of specific diseases and disorders. The...