Until recently, psychology and medicine have existed to a great extent as parallel universes. However, with the emergence of the behavioral medicine and health psychology fields, the recent research on the critical connection between mind and body, the emphasis on holistic medicine and health promotion, and the recognition of the importance of psychosocial aspects of illnesses, there have been unprecedented interdisciplinary efforts by two disciplines to collaborate on the treatment of disease and maintenance of health. As a consequence, psychology has progressed from playing an ancillary role in medicine to one that is more integrated into the comprehensive treatment of illness, particularly chronic illness, and the promotion of health and wellness.

The goal of this book is to expand this integration of psychology with medicine by placing these disciplines into a life-span developmental context. the life-span approach presents a broad conceptual perspective for viewing human development. When medicine is viewed in this framework, the development of biological, psychological, and social systems can provide a new way of contextualizing health and illness. This developmental context provides information that has significant implication for medical and psychological treatments and outcomes. With a life-span developmental perspective as the guide, this book examines the changing influence of biological, psychological, and social factors on health and illness during infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

The first section of the book (chapters 1-4) introduces the life-span model. Chapter I traces the historical relation between psychology and medicine. in addition, models for examining the connections among biological, psychological, and environmental factors and health are described, with particular attention . . .