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The text proposes a generic theory on stress and health and explores the relationship of stress to a variety of health outcomes, including heart disease, cancer, mental health, burnout, and complications of the endocrine and immune systems. It addresses the link between stress and personality, and discusses the impact of social support on various health conditions. The final chapters deal with stress and its consequences, such as the emotional processing of traumatic events, dealing with stress in families and in chronic disease, and coping with stress in the workplace. With contributions from the foremost leaders in the field, this authoritative book evaluates a wide range of psychosocial factors that contribute to many of today's major illnesses. It also proposes strategies for prevention and management, which will hopefully encourage future research into the reduction of stress.

Given how many individuals are exposed to trauma, it is interesting to question why some individuals are resilient in the face of trauma while others go on to develop chronic post-traumatic stress. Throughout the relatively brief history of the psychological study of trauma, a number of themes have consistently emerged; many of these themes remain essential elements within our current study of traumatic stress disorders, as summarized within this volume. The Oxford Handbook of Traumatic Stress Disorders addresses the current landscape of research and clinical knowledge surrounding traumatic stress disorders. Bringing together a group of highly-regarded experts, this volume is divided into six sections, together summarizing the current state of knowledge about 1) classification and phenomenology, 2) epidemiology and special populations, 3) contributions from theory, 4) assessment, 5) prevention and early intervention efforts, and 6) treatment of individuals with post-trauma mental health symptoms.

According to the NIMH, approximately 5.2 million American adults already suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. Caused by everything from combat experience to violent personal assaults to natural disasters and accidents, the incidence of PTSD has already reached epidemic proportions. The profound impact of psychological trauma and the need for proactive and scientifically-based approaches to timely prevention and evidence based treatment is unarguable and mental health programs are seeing a significant rise in the number of PTSD courses offered and services required. As a result, scholars, researchers, educators, clinicians, and trainees in the health care and human and social services need a concise and comprehensive source of authoritative information on psychological trauma and posttraumatic stress.

Can traumatic life events cause depression? Studies generally point to a connection between adverse life events and depression. However, establishing a causal rather than associative connection, the key concern of this book, is more problematic. What neurobiological changes may be induced by stress and depression, and to what extent do these changes correspond? The authors structure their examination around three major themes: the pathophysiological role of stress in depression; whether or not a subtype of depression exists that is particularly stress-inducible; and, finally, how best to diagnose and treat depression in relation to its biological underpinnings.

This volume provides a readily accessible compendium that focuses on the physical and psychological consequences of stress for individuals and society. Clinical attention focuses on disorders of the stress control system (e.g. Cushing's Syndrome: Addison's Disease) and the adverse impact of stress on human physical and mental health. Detailed reviews address disorders such as PTSD, anxiety, major depression, psychoses and related disorders such as combat fatigue and burnout. The work covers interactions between stress and neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, as well as stress-immune-inflammatory interactions in relation to cancer and autoimmune and viral diseases.

Volume Five in the Handbook of Stress series offers comprehensive cover of the interactions between stress, the immune system, immune responses, and Inflammation. The volume provides easy and in-depth access to these themes, both for research and clinical practice. There have been significant advances in our understanding of the interaction of stress, inflammation and the immune response to viral, bacterial and other challenges. Integrated closely with new behavioral findings and relevant to human conditions, this volume offers readers cutting-edge information of prime interest for neuroscientists, psychiatrists, neurologists, neuroendocrinologists, endocrinologists immunologists and general physicians, and researchers, and students, in similar and related themes. The Handbook of Stress series, comprised of self-contained volumes that each focus on a specific stress area, covers the significant advances made since the publication of Elsevier's Encyclopedia of Stress (2000 and 2007).

Several decades ago when the stress concept began to gain popularity, it would have been inconceivable that in only a matter of decades we'd be applying it to such divergent conditions as a soldier's nighttime terrors and a manager's tense work day. In this book, Becker argues that our national infatuation with neurobiology and our immersion in the therapeutic culture have created a middle-class moral imperative to manage the tensions of daily life by boosting our coping abilities, our self-esteem or our immune systems, turning our gaze inward and obscuring our view of the social and political conditions that underlie those tensions. The stress concept has come of age in a period of tectonic social and political shifts. Nonetheless, we persist in the all-American belief that we can meet these changes by re-engineering ourselves. Analyzing and interpreting both research and popular representations of stress in cultural terms, Becker follows the evolution of the social uses of the stress concept as it has been transformed into an important vehicle for defining, expressing and containing middle-class anxieties about upheavals in American society.

The latest volume in the series based on the Annual Stress and Coping Symposia held at the University of Miami, Drs. McCabe, Schneiderman, Field, and Wellens bring together an outstanding group of researchers to examine the relationship between bio-behavioral and social factors and heart disease. Highlights of the book include an in-depth look at the latest research on: * basic physiological processes in cardiovascular reactivity to stress; * pathophysiological mechanisms in cardiovascular disease; * ethnic differences in cardiovascular regulation; * psychosocial influences on cardiovascular function/disease; and * Behavioral interventions designed to treat cardiovascular disorders. The goal of Stress, Coping, and Cardiovascular Disease is to provide a solid empirical foundation on the relationship between stress and cardiovascular disease so as to stimulate further research into the pathophysiology and treatment of the leading cause of death in industrialized countries.