Health psychology differs from traditional psychology. Its basic premise is that people are healthy and need only short-term treatment. Unlike traditional psychology, where there is often a focus on pathology with the concomitant need for long-term therapy to gain appropriate insight, health psychology focuses on a short-term approach to help individuals cope with the health issues that affect them. Health psychology often uses a brief cognitive-behavioral model, while traditional psychology generally uses a long-term psychodynamic model. Although often using the techniques of CBT, health psychology is more than just CBT. It focuses on the interface between mental health and physical/medical illness, as contrasted with CBT, which is often done with those experiencing a psychiatric disorder, which in most cases is not related to nor associated with a physical/medical illness.

A psychologist familiar with CBT would feel comfortable using this model as the CBT style of therapy is incorporated into the basic approach of health psychology. However, a psychologist familiar with psychodynamic techniques may feel uncomfortable. For example, a typical treatment program may involve using cognitive and/or behavioral techniques over 2-6 treatment sessions to help an individual manage chronic pain. Trask and colleagues described their program of integrating psychological approaches into primary care. Their typical program for chronic pain is composed of 4 sessions and involves structured CBT where the patient is taught relaxation training, cognitive challenging, and problem solving. A therapist with a CBT theoretical orientation would feel comfortable with this approach, while one with a psychodynamic theoretical orientation might find that there was no time to develop a relationship and to understand the multiple processes behind the presenting chronic pain symptoms.