Over the past decades, the field of health psychology has witnessed a tremendous growth, and social psychologists have contributed substantially to the theoretical foundation of this field. Their research has focused on a wide variety of health-relevant topics such as how individuals decide to respond to threats to their health and well-being, how and why they change their behavior to avoid such threats, and especially, how they adjust to or cope with the risk of threatening disease and with the diseases themselves. As diverse as this literature may be, however, there does appear to be a common theme throughout much of it--the observation that comparison of oneself and one's health status and coping efforts with others is an integral part of the coping process. Consequently, social comparison theory is increasingly becoming recognized as a fruitful framework for illuminating health related issues. A still expanding literature is exploring the role of social comparisons with respect to coping with a wide range of health problems, including cancer, physical decline among the aged, rheumatoid arthritis, AIDS, stress at work and occupational burnout, and eating disorders. Social comparison theory has augmented knowledge about the ways in which people cope with stressful events, and thus has contributed significantly to it. At a more basic level, research in this applied context has made significant contributions to the development of social comparison theory itself. The present volume presents an overview of the various ways in which social comparison theory has been applied to issues related to health, coping, and well-being, and also points out how these applications have contributed to our insight into the way humans employ social comparison information. Given the attention paid to theoretical and applied issues, this volume will appeal to a wide audience, including social and health psychologists, as well as therapists, physicians, clinicians, medical sociologists, nurses, and those involved in the growing field of nursing research.

Do you have arguments that go round and round in circles? Do you and your partner keep picking at each other over stupid things? Can things turn nasty when you disagree? Despite all the falling out, making up and promises to try harder, do you find that nothing really changes? If all this sounds familiar, it is time for a fresh approach. In this down-to-earth book, marital therapist Andrew G Marshall draws on twenty-five years of counselling couples to explain how to deal with conflict and find lasting solutions. Discover: - Why avoiding arguments stores up long-term problems. - What really drives those petty squabbles. - How to stop things spiralling out of control. - Five useful things to argue about. - The tools to have productive and positives disagreements. - How to learn and move on.

WOODLAND WISDOM BOOKS were created to support parents, caregivers, educators, counsellors, and other helpers in the community to navigate difficult subjects with children. As a Children's Counsellor, I am often asked, "How do I talk to a child about (insert difficult subject here)?" I wanted to provide resources that talk about the issue the child is going through with honest and age-appropriate language that also guides the reader on how to help the child process their thoughts and feelings in a healthy way. Working in non-profit agencies, I recognize resources are not always available to fund enough staff to meet the need in the community. I wanted to create resources that will be helpful to children who are on waitlists to receive counselling services. My hope is that these books will also reach children who may never end up attending counselling. Woodland Wisdom Books start with a guide for the readers then the story begins. The characters of Woodland Woods tell tales of struggles, triumphs, and wisdom. The books end with exercises providing further ideas for healthy ways to deal with difficult issues.

This volume of Proceedings gathers papers presented at XOVETIC2020 (A Coruña, Spain, 8–9 October 2020), a conference with the main goal of bringing together young researchers working in big data, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, HPC (High-performance computing), cybersecurity, bioinformatics, natural language processing, 5G, and other areas from the field of ICT (Information Communications Technology); and offering a platform to present the results of their research to a national audience in Portugal. This third edition aims to serve as the basis of this event, which will be consolidated over time and acquire international projection.

Making Sense of Psychiatric Diagnosis aims to cut through the misinformation, stigma, and assumptions that surround mental illness and give a clear picture of what mental illness really is. The book pairs diagnostic criteria and descriptions for a variety of mental illnesses in the DSM-5 with nineteen first-hand narrative accounts of what it’s like to live with those conditions. The book is also infused with the author’s own experience as a mental health nurse and person living with depression. With the fusion of diagnostic information, clinical experience, and lived experience, this book offers a unique, well-rounded perspective on the reality of mental illness.

Few publications have changed the landscape of contemporary psychology more than Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman's landmark work, Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. Its publication in 1984 set the course for years of research on the dynamic processes of psychological stress and coping in human beings. Now more than a quarter-century later, The Oxford Handbook of Stress, Health, and Coping pushes the field even further with a comprehensive overview of the newest and best work in this dynamic subject. Edited by Susan Folkman and comprising chapters by the field's leading scientists, this new volume details the expanded knowledge base that has emerged from extensive research on stress and coping processes over the last several decades. Featuring 22 topic-based chapters -- including two by Folkman -- this volume offers unprecedented coverage of the two primary research topics related to stress and coping: mitigating stress-related harms and sustaining well-being in the face of stress. Both topics are addressed within their relevant contexts, including chronic illness, calamity, bereavement, and social hardship. The Oxford Handbook of Stress, Health, and Coping is an essential reference work for students, practitioners, and researchers across the fields of health psychology, medicine, and palliative care.

Coping With Loss describes the many ways in which people cope with the death of someone they love. Most earlier books on bereavement have fallen into two categories: distillations of the clinical experience of individual therapists or collections of chapters reporting the results of empirical studies. Each category is valuable but has tended to serve a narrow group of readers--practitioners with particular theoretical orientations or researchers in quest of the latest findings. Coauthored by a leading research psychologist and an experienced therapist who specializes in bereavement education and intervention, this book is different. The authors weave together the strands of theory, research, and clinical wisdom into a seamless and readable narrative. While they discuss previous work, they also present new data, never before published, from one of the largest studies of bereaved people ever conducted, the Bereavement Coping Project. Unlike most studies to date, which focused on only one type of bereaved group (usually widows or widowers), the Bereavement Coping Project examined the experiences of several different groups during the first l8 months after the death. The groups included those who had lost a spouse, a parent, an adult sibling, or a child; and those who had lost their significant other to cancer or cardiovascular disease on one hand as opposed to the stigmatized disease of AIDS on the other. The book begins with a critical overview of theories of bereavement; succeeding chapters explore in depth the impact of specific types of loss, the impact of particular coping strategies on recovery; the impact of social supports and religion, and the special cases of children and of people who seem to grow and change for the better after a loss. A final chapter considers implications for intervention with bereaved people. Each chapter is richly illuminated with real-life examples throughout and ends with a section called "Voices" in which bereaved people describe their various attempts to cope in their own words. Insightful and informative.