Low-Cost Approaches to Promote Physical and Mental Health

by L'Abate, Luciano

• ISBN13: 9780387368986
• ISBN10: 0387368981
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-04-30
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

This book brings together simple health interventions that have been found to produce noticeable physical, behavioral, and psychological benefits with minimal costs, maximal mass applicability, self-administration with negligible side effects, and a high potential for self-initiation. Time- and cost-consuming face-to-face interactions with professionals are kept to a minimum, and after learning how to use a particular intervention, participants can go on their own without any other contact with professional or paraprofessional intermediaries. This book does not cover training in social or psycho-educational skills such as assertiveness training or anger management, or traditional primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention approaches such as psychotherapy or crisis intervention. Instead, it focuses on health promotion methods that are easy to implement and sufficiently concrete to represent standard operating procedures repeatable from one intermediary to another, at little or no cost to participants. These non-medical behavioral and psychological interventions can be taught or administered by volunteers, graduate students, and practitioners in the mental health helping professions in simple-to-effect ways.

Author Biography

Luciano L'Abate is Professor Emeritus in Psychology at Georgia State University. He has co-edited/authored two previous books with Springer: Handbook of Homework Assignments in Psychotherapy and Personality in Intimate Relationships: Socialization and Psychopathology.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
List of Contributors	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Physical Health: Survival
Low-Cost Approaches to Promote Physical and Mental Health	p. 3
Primary Interventions: Nutritional Approaches	p. 41
Diets, Health, and Weight Control: What Do We Know?	p. 47
Low-Cost Obesity Interventions: The Market for Foods	p. 73
Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Health	p. 87
Vitamins, Minerals and Health	p. 103
Herbal Medicines in the Treatment of Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders	p. 119
Primary Nonverbal Approaches	p. 139
Daily Practices for Mindful Exercise	p. 141
Relaxation and Meditation	p. 161
Expressive Movement	p. 177
Pleasant, Pleasurable, and Positive Activities	p. 201
Mental Health: Enjoyment
Secondary Writing Approaches	p. 219
The Recording of Personal Information as an Intervention and as an Electronic Health Support	p. 227
Teaching to Remember Ourselves: The Autobiographical Methodology	p. 251
Expressive Writing: An Alternative to Traditional Methods	p. 271
Workbooks for the Promotion of Mental Health and Life-Long Learning	p. 285
Computers and the Internet	p. 303
Secondary Relational Approaches	p. 321
Maternal-Infant Contact and Child Development: Insights from the Kangaroo Intervention	p. 323
Touch Interventions Positively Affect Development	p. 353
Non-Erotic Physical Affection: It's Good for You	p. 371
Sex, Sexuality and Sensuality	p. 385
Intimacy and Fear of Intimacy	p. 395
Low-Cost Interventions for Promoting Forgiveness	p. 415
Spirituality in Achieving Physical and Psychological Health and Well-Being: Theory, Research and Low Cost Interventions	p. 435
Tertiary Multi-Personal Approaches	p. 453
Friendship, Social Support, and Health	p. 455
Animal Companions	p. 473
Applications of Emotional Intelligence to Schools and Workplace	p. 485
Conclusion	p. 503
Implications of Prescriptive Approaches for Policy, Health Promotion, Epidemiology, and Public Health	p. 505
Subject Index	p. 521
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