Although many think otherwise, the meeting between doctor and patient is much more than a mere formality. There is a need to establish and maintain a quality relationship in order to treat the disease and improve it. In this relationship between doctor-patient when medical psychology comes into play. Below we will tell you what it consists of and what progress has been made with respect to it.
Origins of medical psychology
In a broad sense, the origins of medical psychology can be anticipated to those of Medicine itself. But, in the strictest sense, it has been around for little more than a century, emerging in Europe in the mid-19th century. In countries like Spain, for example, it was included in Medicine studies in 1944 and in 1966 it was introduced into the area of Psychiatry.
In the United States, for example, medical schools also introduced the study of the first cycle of Teaching the “Behavioral Sciences” which, until the mid-1980s, had a dense psychoanalytic content that contrasted curiously with the behavioral teaching of the Faculties of Psychology.
What goals do you have?
Medicine guided by psychology has as its center of attention contemplating man as an individual and not as a disease, restoring unity between science and humanities in medical teaching and practice, and disseminating new thinking in teaching, practice, research, and public health. .
It can be said that the objectives of medical psychology are the following:
- Recognize the bases of normal human behavior and its alterations.
- Understand and recognize the psychological and social risk factors that cause diseases and their development.
- Recognize, diagnose and guide the management of psychiatric disorders.
- Understand the effects of the different phases of life: growth, development and aging on the individual and their environment.
- Acquire an empathetic and honest doctor-patient relationship, with respect for the autonomy of the patient, their beliefs and culture.
- Recognize the determinants of health in the population.
- Develop a healthy practice for the doctor himself.
- The importance of understanding medicine as a social science and not just a biological one.
What is clear is that medical psychology is dedicated to understanding the effects, causes and responses of individuals on health before and during illness.