Health, Stress and Coping

by Aaron Antonovsky

significance of salutogenesis

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

255 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1979

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting proposal as to what makes a person healthier. Encouraging us to dispose of the negative, disease-oriented nature of Modern Medicine, he suggests we look at what makes people closer to the positive end of the ease/dis-ease spectrum. He concludes it is a person's "sense of coherence" which leads one toward the positive end of that spectrum (though no one, he says, is at the absolute end, completely "at ease"). Looking at what contributes to that sense of coherence, he has an interesting diagram which shows how it interacts with "resistance resources" as well as with feedback from one's own actions, which may or may not increase our sense of coherence. Unfortunately, much of those resistance resources are what are now called the "social determinants of health", which, using his theory, provides a person with more coherence, and thus, more ability to negotiate the stresses of life without being pushed into the dis-ease portion of the spectrum.

My giving it two stars is because, although he spends much of the book outlining and review the literature about this subject, and discussing in depth the scientific approach to judging these other theories, for his own theory he offers no specific evidence. Perhaps there are other places in the medical literature, or other books in which he makes the case, but this book, if meant to be self-contained, does not.

[Gillian RB · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this very dated, both in the language and in the content.

[Andrea Forcella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Utile per aprrocciarsi al modello salutogenico di Antonovsky. In questo libro si inizia a spiegare l'importanza della orientazione salutogenica e vengono descritti e categorizzati molto bene i concetti di stressors e di generalized resistance resources, e una prima idea di sense of coherence abbozzato ma non ancora spiegato nei dettagli, infatti nulla è scritto riguardo alle tre sfere di comprehenesibility, manageability e meaningfullness, che l'autore introdurrà successivamente nella sua carriera. C'è anche una buona dose di ironia e di partecipazione emotiva, che rende il libro un po' più umano.