Stress, health and personality: a new perspective

Stress and stress management have been a major preoccupation in research and training for several decades, but without much clarity about what stress is or whether training programmes have any effect. In fact, the weight of evidence suggests that conventional stress management is of very little benefit, but this is hardly surprising in view of the inappropriate definitions of stress on which the training has commonly been based. The aim of the present article is to try to rectify some of the misconceptions about stress and stress management, and to describe a new approach which helps to resolve the inconsistencies in both research and practice.