[Psychology in contemporary medicine]

In the last few decades we can observe a significant increase of the interest in psychology in medicine. There are several reasons behind it. Most importantly, there has been a drastic shift in the characteristics of illnesses as well as the leading causes of deaths. In the past, contagious diseases used to dominate, often in the form of an epidemic. In the second part of the twentieth century the so-called civilizational diseases appeared and currently have become the leading causes of deaths. In these types of diseases the psychosocial elements are key, which naturally raises the importance of psychology. Rapid progress in medicine apart from helping to fight disease has also introduced some negative issues, including dehumanization of medicine. It created an urgent need to reinforce the importance of the patient, who is above all a sick person needing help. And this is an important task for psychology in medicine. Contemporary medicine increasingly helps to save human life. However, there is also a question of the quality of life, which is another key issue for psychology. While medicine saves people from dying it also creates huge costs of hospitalization and rehabilitation. In this respect, there is a role for psychology to encourage healthy behaviors among young people, which can serve as disease prevention. Promotion of healthy lifestyles has a potential to reduce the risk of long-term diseases and bring down their social costs. There are also two more general reasons, which have increased the importance of psychology in today's medicine. One of them is the shift towards a more holistic approach in medicine. This approach stresses the importance of all the spheres of a person in the healing process; apart from the biological sphere, the focus is also on psychological, social and spiritual spheres. A natural consequence of such an approach is including psychology next to medicine in the healing process. A second reason has to do with the appearance of a new salutogenic model in medicine, as compared to the traditional pathogenetical model. This new model draws from the theory of stress and the theory of copying, which naturally includes references to psychology The issues of stress as well as copying are key in this model of health and illness.