The psychological perspective in health psychology is interested in trying to explain how biological, environmental, and psychological factors have influenced and affected health psychology and also the prevention and treatment of illness and diseases. Health psychologists work in conjunction with other specialized medical doctors in their various fields to come up with better ways of offering health service in areas such as research, studying behavior change and also in disease prevention (Barkway Pp 18).
In this paper, our psychological perspective will focus on investigating the different cultural practices in terms of death and dying. According to some psychologists, the perception of death and dying has undergone quite significant changes. These changes are a result of exposure and also the age of the affected parties. The American baby boomers never experienced death and mourning as they were very young. They only experienced it when they were teenagers, in cognitive perspective they were not prepared psychologically, and having no experience in this regard rendered their mourning habits and response to be different. This was in contrast to Japanese baby boomers, who had experienced the perception of death in their culture due to the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Jerry Pp 56).
Our focus will rely mainly on the Aboriginals of Australia, their culture and their perception of death in contrast to that of the Italian. The Aboriginals had a unique aspect of marriage, kinship and death rituals and also believed in multiple human souls. The human souls were generally categorized into two basic categories, with the ego spirit being the autonomous agency that hovered around the body and was regarded as being benevolent in nature. The ego spirit required exorcism through rituals for it to leave. The Italians, on the other hand, had high regard for their dead and their mourning has still got its traditional aspect where mourning is characterized by people wearing dark clothes and saying prayers for the departed (Korff Pp 6).
Reference List
American Psychological Association. The American psychologist, Vol 48, Issue 7.The University of Michigan.1993
Barkway. Patricia,. Psychology for health professionals. Australia. Elsevier. Chapter 4 for week 9. 2009
Barkway. Patricia,. Psychology for health professionals. Australia. Elsevier. Chapter 6. 2009
Jerry. Walls, L. The Oxford handbook of eschatology: Oxford handbooks. Oxford University Press, 2008
Korff. Jens, Indigenous Australian Aboriginal Culture. 2009. Web.
US Department of Health and Human Services Alcohol Alert. Journal: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). No. 68. 2006. Web.