The current usage of the wordstressarose out ofSelye's 1930s experiments. He started to use the term to refer not just to the agent but to the state of the organism as it responded and adapted to the environment. His theories of a universal non-specific stress response attracted great interest and contention in academicphysiologyand he undertook extensive research programs and publication efforts.[70]
While the work attracted continued support from advocates ofpsychosomatic medicine, many in experimental physiology concluded that his concepts were too vague and unmeasurable. During the 1950s, Selye turned away from the laboratory to promote his concept through popular books and lecture tours. He wrote for both non-academic physicians and, in an international bestseller entitledStress of Life, for the general public.
A broadbiopsychosocialconcept of stress and adaptation offered the promise of helping everyone achieve health and happiness by successfully responding to changing global challenges and the problems of moderncivilization. Selye coined the term "eustress" for positive stress, by contrast todistress. He argued that all people have a natural urge and need to work for their own benefit, a message that found favor with industrialists and governments.[70]He also coined the termstressorto refer to the causative event or stimulus, as opposed to the resulting state of stress.
From the late 1960s, academicpsychologistsstarted to adoptSelye's concept; they sought to quantify "life stress" by scoring "significant life events," and a large amount of research was undertaken to examine links between stress and disease of all kinds. By the late 1970s, stress had become the medical area of greatest concern to the general population, and more basic research was called for to better address the issue. There was also renewed laboratory research into theneuroendocrine,molecular, andimmunologicalbases of stress, conceived as a usefulheuristicnot necessarily tied toSelye's original hypotheses. TheUS militarybecame a key center of stress research, attempting to understand and reduce combatneurosisand psychiatric casualties.[70]
Thepsychiatricdiagnosispost-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD) was coined in the mid-1970s, in part through the efforts of anti-Vietnam War activists and theVietnam Veterans Against the War, andChaim F. Shatan. The condition was added to theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disordersasposttraumatic stress disorderin 1980.[71]PTSD was considered a severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological trauma, and as such often associated with soldiers, police officers, and other emergency personnel. The stressor may involve threat to life (or viewing the actual death of someone else), serious physical injury, or threat to physical or psychological integrity. In some cases, it can also be from profound psychological and emotional trauma, apart from any actual physical harm or threat. Often, however, the two are combined.
By the 1990s, "stress" had become an integral part of modern scientific understanding in all areas of physiology and human functioning, and one of the great metaphors of Western life. Focus grew on stress in certain settings, such asworkplace stress, andstress managementtechniques were developed. The term also became aeuphemism, a way of referring to problems and elicitingsympathywithout being explicitly confessional, just "stressed out." It came to cover a huge range of phenomena from mildirritationto the kind of severe problems that might result in a real breakdown ofhealth. In popular usage, almost any event or situation between these extremes could be described as stressful.[1][70]
Defense Physiology
Trier Social Stress Test
Xenohormesis
Notes[edit]
^Jump up to:abKeil, R.M.K. (2004)Coping and Stress: A Conceptual Analysis; "Journal of Advanced Nursing", 45(6), 659–665