MICHAEL MURRAY is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Keele University, UK, where he was Head of the School of Psychology. Previously, he was Professor of Social and Health Psychology at Memorial University, Canada, and held positions at St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, London, UK and at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. He has published over 200 books, chapters, journal articles and reports on various issues in social and health psychology. His previous books include Smoking Among Young Adults (1988, with L. Jarrett, A.V. Swan and R. Rumen), Qualitative Health Psychology: Theories and Methods (1999, with K. Chamberlain) and Critical Health Psychology (2004, 2015). He also edited with Kerry Chamberlain the collection New Directions in Health Psychology (Vols. 1-5) (2015) and with Liz Peel and Carol Holland Psychologies of Ageing: Theory, Research and Practice (2018). Michael has been Associate Editor of the Journal of Health Psychology and of Psychology and Health and an editorial board member of Health Psychology Open, Health Psychology Review, Psychology, Health and Medicine and Arts and Health. He was Chair of the Health Psychology Section of the Canadian Psychological Association for which he edited Canadian Health Psychologist/Psychologue Canadien de la Santé and a founding member of the International Society of Critical Health Psychology. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Canadian Psychological Association and the Academy of Social Sciences. In 2017 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society. His current research interests include the use of participatory and arts-based methods to promote social engagement among older people.
The discipline of health psychology has grown rapidly in recent years, during a period of increasing debate about the nature of psychology and of science in general. Health psychology has tended to adopt the dominant positivist approaches and methods of its parent discipline, but questions are increasingly being asked about the relevance and legitimacy of these theoretical and methodological frameworks for health psychology, and there is growing interest in developing alternative approaches. One such alternative is to apply the theories and methods of qualitative research to health psychology. Qualitative Health Psychology examines a wide variety of qualitative research issues and considers their relevance for health psychology. The editors examine some of the main theoretical perspectives underlying qualitative research, such as discourse analysis and narrative research, and consider the social context and embodiment of health and illness. They also cover some of the practical issues involved in conducting qualitative research, including interviewing, and focus particularly on issues of research with different populations, such as children and the terminally ill. In addition, the book considers a range of analytic issues and specific analytic approaches such as grounded theory, action research and the evaluation of qualitative methods. Persuasive and compelling, Qualitative Health Psychology provides s strong case for the use of a qualitative framework in health psychology and is essential reading for anyone interested in the research or practice of health psychology today.
