Health and Medical Psychology Leiden University

Overview

The Health and Medical Psychology MSc programme at Leiden University looks at how health, illness, and recovery are affected by biopsychosocial factors. There is a strong focus on empowerment, so ‘what someone can do’, instead of only focusing on what the burden of a specific disease is. This importantly contributes to promoting and maintaining health, preventing disease and treating illness. Majoring in health and medical psychology is ideal for those who want to understand the role of the mind on our overall health, which is relevant in almost all domains of our lives.

The broad focus is on the relationships between biopsychosocial processes (such as cognitions, emotions and behaviour, psychophysiological stress systems, brain functioning) and health outcomes. More specifically, topics of interest are prevention of disease and promotion of health, and the diagnosis and treatment of the psychological aspects of chronic somatic diseases.

Reasons to choose Health and Medical Psychology at Leiden University

• With a master's degree in Health and Medical Psychology you can work in different interdisciplinary settings and organisations, focusing on different topics and target groups. For example, you can train medical staff, set up large scale health promotion campaigns or have a key role in advisory boards for health concerns.

• You will have the chance to work clinically with various patient populations or in research projects together with associated organisations, like the Leiden University Medical Centre.  

• You will have the opportunity to participate in excellent research programs, focusing on a broad variety of research methods in both applied and fundamental research on topics, such as eHealth, self-management in chronic conditions, placebo effects, stress, somatic unexplained symptoms or health promotion.