The Nature and Treatment of the Stress Response : A Practical Guide for Clinicians

Barely more than twenty years ago the inquiry into the nature and implications of the psychophysiologic stress response seemed to be restricted to laboratory animals. Today, however, scientists from a wide range of disciplines are studying stress and its implications for human health and disease. This may be because our technical ability actually to measure the phenomenon has increased, as has our understanding of human psychophysiology. Just as important, how­ ever, may be the fact that we have entered a new era of disease. According to Kenneth Pelletier, we have entered upon an era in which stress plays a dominant role in the determination of human disease. Pelletier has stated that up to 90% of all disease may be stress-related. Whether this estimation seems inflated or not, the fact remains that clinicians of all kinds, including physicians, psychologists, physical therapists, social workers, and counselors, are daily being confronted with clients suffering from excessive psychophysiologic stress arousal. This fact has created a need to know more about the stress response and its treatment. Although more and more health-care professionals are directly or indirectly working with clients who manifest excessive stress, there has been no text previously written which attempted to condensE' between the covers of a single volume a practical, clinically compre­ hensive discussion of what stress is (as best we currently understand it) and how to treat it when it becomes excessive. Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 What Is Stress?....Pages 3-10 Front Matter....Pages 11-11 The Nervous Systems and the Stress Response....Pages 13-32 From Stress to Disease....Pages 33-45 The Measurement of the Stress Response....Pages 47-57 Front Matter....Pages 59-59 Self-Responsibility as a Therapeutic Force....Pages 61-70 Dietary Recommendations and the Stress Response....Pages 71-76 The Pharmacological Treatment of the Stress Response....Pages 77-88 The Clinical Use of Relaxation Techniques General Considerations....Pages 89-95 Meditation....Pages 97-112 Neuromuscular Relaxation....Pages 113-130 Voluntary Control of Respiration Patterns in the Reduction of Excessive Stress....Pages 131-141 Biofeedback in the Treatment of the Stress Response....Pages 143-155 Healthful Expression of the Stress Response through Physical Exercise....Pages 157-166 The Use of Hypnosis in the Treatment of the Stress Response....Pages 167-173 Putting It All Together....Pages 175-183 Back Matter....Pages 185-215