Publications by writers and editors at Memorial University
Critical Health Psychology Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice, Second Edition
Dr. Michael Murray, professor of social and health psychology in the Faculty of Medicine, is one of the authors of the second edition of Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice, published by Sage Publication, and is the editor of Critical Health Psychology, recently published by Palgrave MacMillan,
The first edition of Health Psychology broke new ground by exploring different approaches to the psychological study of health, besides including topics such as the cultural basis of health and society, behavioural factors ranging from diet, alcohol and smoking, communication between health practitioners, and models of health promotion. The second edition includes new chapters covering such topics as social inequalities, social justice and health, research methods in health psychology, preventing and controlling pain, cancer and chronic illness, and health and work.
The second edition of the textbook Health Psychology keeps all of the features of the first but with greater coverage and pedagogic focus. All chapters from the original edition have been substantially rewritten to achieve greater clarity and to incorporate the latest research. Five new chapters have been added to reflect the expansion of health psychology and its increasing relevance to the world of health care.
Dr. Michael Murray
The other book, Critical Health Psychology, is designed to provide an introduction to key issues in developing a critical health psychology. It considers alternatives to the assumptions underlying traditional health psychology and proposes a reconstructed discipline that investigates the experience of health and illness and connects this with the social and political aspects of the subject.
The book grew out of the First International Conference on Critical Health Psychology that Dr. Murray organized in St. Johnís back in 1999. There have been three similar conferences since ≠ in Birmingham, Auckland and Sheffield ≠ with the next planned to take place in Boston in 2007. According to Dr. Murray there is increasing interest in developing a critical approach to health psychology and to psychology in general.