Aaron Antonovsky’s Development of Salutogenesis, 1979 to 1994

This chapter follows the development of Antonovsky’s thinking about health, stress, and coping from the middle of the 1950s and until 1994, from his awakening interest for the salutogenic question to his proposal of the Salutogenic Model of Health as a theory to guide health promotion. This chapter reproduces Antonovsky’s depiction of the salutogenic model of health from Chapter 7 in his book from 1979, Health, Stress and Coping, including his definitions of main constructs such as stress, health, breakdown, Generalized Resistance Resources, and Sense of Coherence. While the chapter briefly describes these constructs and their place in the salutogenic model of health as a whole, in-depth discussion of them is left to designated chapters. The role of this chapter is to provide an overview of the Salutogenic Model of Health the way Antonovsky wrote about it over nearly 30 years.