salutogenesis

Salutogenesis

The concept of salutogenesis has been increasingly used in medical, psychological and nursing professions in recent years. The salutogenesis model goes back to the Israeli medical sociologist and stress researcher Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994).

According to the literature, Antonovsky was inspired by the literature in 1970 about the problems of women in the menopause who had experienced severe emotional and physical suffering in the concentration camp. He wondered why some women still called themselves healthy, but others were still suffering, while the external conditions were about the same for everyone.

Consequently, this question led him to research on the emergence of health. This was in contrast to the common (biomedical) model in medicine: Here, we look exclusively at the development of disease. For example, the World Health Organization WHO has as its principle the achievement and maintenance of total mental, physical and emotional well-being. It is thus strived for a final state, which can not be reached and maintained after Antonovsky, anyway.

Health and disease are active in the salutogenesis, dynamically regulating events. They are not final states, but parts of processes that never end. Death and illness are also part of our lives and not split off from it. As an image Antonovsky used a river that starts in the mountains and eventually ends in the sea. On his way there are rapids, obstacles (rocks, trees), shoals, etc ...
Sometimes it goes slower, sometimes faster. It is the same with us in life: there are always obstacles and slower passages that we go through and overcome, but we always swim in the flow of life. The established medicine saves people from drowning, but it can also make them good swimmers?

The sense of coherence
According to the salutogenesis concept, what is decisive here is the so-called sense of coherence. Coherence means: inner and outer cohesion, connectedness, coherence. This is different for every person and is generally meant to be the ability to experience the world as we see it - if the things around us make sense and we understand it. And how we use our own resources in our lives to help. Of course, how this sense of coherence affects each individual also depends very much on their age and past life history, their culture, their society and their social circumstances.

Antonovsky had subdivided the sense of coherence into three components: comprehensibility: This describes the ability to classify one's own environment in such a way that it is understandable for the individual. Manageability: The trust that one has with one's own meaningfulness or meaningfulness: to have a sense of the effort and dedication that it pays to use.

The factors commonly mean that life as such seems meaningful to us. Problems are challenges that are part of life. Our own attitude determines how we handle it and cope with it. We take responsibility and are not at the mercy of our reaction to external circumstances. As conditions change, we are able to react flexibly and adapt to it. Conversely, a weak sense of coherence leads to a feeling of helplessness, helplessness and overburdening with one's own life, its meaning-contexts and requirements.

Practical benefits of salutogenesis
According to this model, it is easier to understand why different reactions and consequences occur in people with the same external influences. It is an old question why some people, such as Helmut Schmidt, despite decades of massive smoking, will be 90 years old and will be able to write books, while others are much more likely to suffer from the health effects of such nicotine abuse or other factors such as smoking. familial stress situations, would suffer.

In this sense, Antonovsky formulated revolutionary basic principles which, however, take into account and allow individuality in their relation to the individual. With the concept of salutogenesis, he has given therapists, nurses and therapists a tool that allows preventive and, in addition to the current symptoms, to permanently and fundamentally strengthen the ability of the person to compensate as a person treated. (Thorsten Fischer, Naturopath Osteopathy, 13.02.2010)

Additional information:

Aaron Antonovsky: Salutogenesis: Demystification of Health; 222 pages; Dgvt publishing house 1997
Rüdiger Lorenz: Salutogenesis. Basic knowledge for psychologists, physicians, health and nursing scientists; 208 pages; Ernst Reinhardt Verlag 2005