Health Psychology

What is Health Psychology? Health psychologists help people to deal with problems ranging from health concerns to the stresses of daily living. These include: 

• Health Concerns like coping with new diagnoses, acute, life-threatening, and chronic illnesses, injury, medical treatment (e.g., transplant), self-care regimens, hospitalizations, disability, or the emotional, family, social, vocational, and other effects of health problems.
• Feelings such as anger, anxiety, confusion, crisis, depression, fear, frustration, grief, loss of control, sadness, uncertainty, suicidality, and motivational issues.
• Behaviors such as those affecting health, self-care, adherence to treatment regimens, relationships, school, social interactions, or work.
• Challenges associated with family issues, school, work, and aging, including caregiver stress.

Health Psychology Consultation Service 
Consultation is provided to inpatient settings throughout the University of Minnesota Medical Center for diverse medical problems, and treatment issues.  We are uniquely able to provide continuity of care between medical inpatient units and outpatient clinics at the University of Minnesota Medical Center.  We collaborate closely with the physicians and other health providers throughout the hospital. 

Health Psychology consultation can assist medical teams by helping patients identify and process emotional issues that may be affecting their ability to understand information and implement treatment plans. Health psychologists can be involved with issues related to: decision-making for treatment; family matters; end-of-life issues, etc.  Services include patient assessment, counseling, crisis-intervention, relaxation training, hypnosis, behavior change (e.g., smoking cessation, weight loss), and mental health triage and referral.  

Consultation Requests 
For consultation requests from the Medicine Firms, please leave a voicemail message for Dr. Bearman at 624-0933.  If it is urgent, please page her directly. Dr. Bearman will be increasing her availability for consultation coverage in 2008, especially on Thursday mornings.  She will also triage consultation requests from the Firms within Health Psychology as needed. 

Inpatient consultation requests can also be initiated by contacting the other health psychologists directly. Coverage is available on weekdays only.

See Also:  Inpatient Mental Health Consultation Options for Medical Patient Care Unit  (word document)