This book offers a framework for practicing healthy preventive stress management. The book begins with a panoramic overview of the stress field from its medical and physiological origins in the early 1900s through its psychological elaborations during the second half of the century and its current application and practice in organizations. /// The authors examine the sources of stress; the psychophysiology of the stress response and individual moderators that condition vulnerability for distress; the psychological, behavioral, and medical forms of individual distress; and the organizational costs of distress. At the heart of the book is a framework for preventive stress management. Specific chapters examine methods and instruments for diagnosing organizational and individual stress; ways to redesign work and improve professional relationships; and methods for managing demands and stressors, altering how one responds to inevitable and necessary demands. Organizational and individual prevention methods are designed to enhance health and performance at work while averting the costs and discomfort of distress. Examples of healthy organizations are illustrated throughout the text, with specific case examples of implementing preventive managements ... (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved).