Chapter 6 – Stress, Contextual Change, and Disease

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the Hans Selye's concept of stress that is viewed as fundamentally denoting contextual change that demands a response. Selye regarded the stress response as relatively nonspecific. He documented a number of physiological and tissue changes that occur with stress. Selye noted three phases in the stress response. There was an initial alarm reaction, a mobilization of the body's defenses. This phase had two components—an initial shock-reaction phase, from the offensive stimulation, soon followed by a systemic counter–shock-reaction phase. Human mobility has been regarded as a source of stress. However, it is not simply a matter of leaving behind familiar surroundings that are part of the nonliving world or social context. The nonliving environment encompasses features such as solar radiation, weather, altitude, chemical composition of the earth, and availability of water. The individual is an aspect of his or her own context. When one focuses on any particular bodily function or system, all else that transpires within the organism, including the psychological, provides the context for the function or system that is being examined.