The Nonexpression Of Emotions In Health And Disease

The (Non)Expression of Emotions in Health Disease contains the texts of contributions to the international conference on the (non)expression of emotions in health and disease, held at Tilburg University on August 28 - 30, 1996. Emotions are important for people in daily life. Their relevance is linked to their communicational aspects and their function to motivate, fuel, and guide our efforts to cope with the world around us. But emotions can also seriously interfere with people's ability to function adequately and can thus impede adaptation. In addition, both (quasi)experimental and correlational studies have yielded support for the hypothesis that the nonexpression of emotions may be an important factor for health status. However, it is not entirely clear how the different constructs and findings obtained with different methodologies relate to one another. Also, little is known about possible aetiological factors associated with nonexpression. Why are some individuals more expressive than others? What are the basic functions of emotional expressiveness and why and how could nonexpressiveness be associated with poor health status? Topics like alexi-thymia, emotions and disease, and the clinical aspects are addressed in this publication. Finally, there are contributions focusing on adult crying. The book is intended for both researchers and clinicians in the behavioral sciences and in medicine.