Special Section: Rorschach and Health Psychology Translational Research Experiences in Health Psychology with the Rorschach

Health psychology emerged as a discipline in the late 1970s in the United States and f lourished in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. Although it is a recent phenomenon, the amount of scientific work produced on this subject to date is impressive, the Health Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association being the second largest division in number of members. Health psychology is concerned with understanding how biology, behavior, and social context interact with health and illness. For example, researchers recently demonstrated that emotional regulation and emotional coping moderate the impact of anxiety and distress on metabolic control in diabetes (Luminet, De Timary, Buysschaert, & Luts, 2006; Sultan, Jebrane, & Heurtier-Hartemann, 2002; Sultan, Epel, Sachon, Vaillant, & Hartemann-Heurtier, 2008). In medical settings, the objectives of individual psychological assessment are threefold (Fava & Freyberger, 1998). First, to assess personality traits and their potential impact on health; work on the role of alexithymia, for example, could be classified in this category (e.g., Acklin & Alexander, 1988). Thus, it deals with primary prevention. Second, to identify psychological facilitators of self-care behaviors in ill people; work on adherence or maintenance of self-care would fall into this category (e.g., Sultan, Bungener, & Andronikof, 2002). This concerns secondary prevention. Finally, to observe the psychological response of patients for rehabilitation purposes; this is what we do when we work on the adjustment to or the representation of health conditions (e.g., Flahault & Sultan, Rorschachiana 31, 113–116 DOI: 10.1027/1192-5604/a000007 © 2010 Hogrefe Publishing