- This paper aims at tracing a brief history and background of Health Psychology, from its origin, in 1978 within the APA Division 38, up to our days. In Italy, Health Psychology developed in the Seventies from Medical Psychology and nowadays it is a well defined discipline, with a national scientific Society, linked to the European Health Psychology Society, several courses within the faculties of Psychology, and few post-graduate courses. As Health Psychology is both a theoretical and applied field, recent advances, especially in North America and UK, have lead to the development of specific sub-disciplines, such as Clinical health psychology, Occupational health psychology, Public health psychology, Community health psychology, and Critical health psychology. In Italy also there is a recent interest for these areas, which is reflected in the variety of published studies and practical applications in different contexts (i.e., healthcare, schools, work, and public and community health). Although the necessity of creating separate sub-disciplines has not yet emerged in Italy, the Italian Health Psychology is currently characterized by a great variety of research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, and by a critical analysis and a deep evaluation of different theoretical orientations. Key words: clinical health psychology, critical health psychology, health psychology, occupational psychology, community psychology, medical psychology, public health.
