Medical Degree Program in China - Medical Psychology

Medical Psychology is a branch of psychology which studies the mutual influence between mental activity and pathological process. Medical psychology is the outcome of putting theory, method and technology of psychology into medical practice. It is an interdisciplinary subject combing medicine and psychology, which has the property of both natural science and social science, including basic theory, practical application technology and objective experiment. Medical psychology has characteristics of both psychology and medicine, studying and solving all the psychological problems of humans being health or sick and the mutual transformation of the two statuses, that is, to study the role of psychological factors in the etiology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Application of Medical Psychology:

As psychology knowledge and technology widely used in medicine, medical psychology has gradually formed a few branches, such as abnormal psychology focusing on psychiatric; clinical neuropsychology used in neurology; health psychology for preventive medicine; nursing psychology for nursing work.

Clinical psychology is an applied science using psychology knowledge and principles to help patients to correct their own mental and behavioral disorders and to guide and train healthy people by counseling to be adapt to the environment effectively and to be richer in creativity.

Clinical psychology is a branch among medical psychology that develops earliest with the largest number of employees. Clinical psychology occupies a large proportion among the four big fields of applied psychology: industrial psychology, educational psychology, clinical psychology and organizational management psychology.

Research Tasks of Medical Psychology:

1. Study the action laws of psychological factors in the occurrence, development and change of various kinds of diseases.

2. Study the influence of psychological factors, especially the emotional factors on the physiological and biochemical function of the body.

3. Study the role of personality psychological characteristics in the occurrence and rehabilitation of the disease.

4. Study how to achieve the purpose of treatment, disease prevention and health care by the advanced psychological function, cognition, controlling or regulating their own physiological function