In this brief overview psychosocial factors which contribute to health and disease are briefly discussed. These opposing factors are mainly investigated in a unidirectional sense and often neutralize each other and thereby explain only little variance. The normally investigated pathological factors would have to be supplemented by salutogenic (health promoting) factors and vice versa. The salutogenic perspective opens up a resource-oriented approach, which can reduce suffering and also health care costs in almost any kind of disease. There is enough empirical evidence, of which only a small part is presented here, to support this claim.