In the twentieth century, the leading health concerns are lifestyle illness: cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, mental health problems and accidents. This has forced a reevaluation of the earlier “one germ-one disease one therapy” approach and has renewed interest in bio-psycho-social medicine, a concept developed, ironically, by Hippocrates, the “founder” of Western medicine.
To be relevant in this Age of Anxiety, medical approaches to health have begun to focus increasingly on the prevention of illness through behavior and lifestyle changes, and have come more and more into the traditional realm of psychology. Psychologists practicing in this area of skill interface are termed Health Psychologists.
Whether practitinoners of psychosomatic medicine, who focus on the interaction between psychological factors and body dysfunction, or of behaviorial medicine, who attempt to understand how overt, observable behaviors affect the course of an illness, Health Psychologists aim to enable the patient to be aware of himself and his behaviors, and to exercise control over his health.
Awareness and action by our patients allows them to harness the wisdom of the body and its natural healing abilities.

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This paper was read on the outline of Health Psychology in the meeting of JAHP which was held on April 16th, 1988 at Waseda University. First, the definition and concepts of Health Psychology were introduced. Health Psychology is a science for promoting health and curing the disease through psychological and behavioral treatment. It is an interdisciplinary and practical approach including social sciences.
Second, a history of development of Health Psychology was reviewed. A symposium was held on the role of the psychologist in medical education and practice at the convention of APA in 1911. Task Force on Health Psychology, directed by W. Schofield, was organized in APA. Thereafter, a Health Psychology Division was set up in 1978 as Division 38 of APA. There are so many reasons for promoted interest in Health Psychology: (1) attitude change from materialism to spiritualism, (2) failure of medical policy (3) change of cause of disease from pysical to mental factors (4) problemes of bioethics (5) participation of patients in medical treatment.
Third, the research field of Health Psychology was reviewed. Fig.1 shows a system of Health Psychology proposed by G.Stone. Topics on Health Psychology are as follows; stress coping, control of obesity, sentence of death, human relationship in medical situation, AIDS and so on. There are a lot of problems which should be solved by psychologists.

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