Portal:Psychology

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Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.

A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior. Others explore the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors.


Psychologists are involved in research on perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, subjective experiences, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. Psychologists' interests extend to interpersonal relationships, psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas within social psychology. They also consider the unconscious mind. Research psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Some, but not all, clinical and counseling psychologists rely on symbolic interpretation. (Full article...)

The triangle in the middle represents CBT's tenet that all humans' core beliefs can be summed up in three categories: self, others, future.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most effective means of treatment for substance abuse and co-occurring mental health disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (such as thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes) and their associated behaviors to improve emotional regulation and develop personal coping strategies that target solving current problems. Though it was originally designed to treat depression, its uses have been expanded to include many issues and the treatment of many mental health conditions, including anxiety, substance use disorders, marital problems, ADHD, and eating disorders. CBT includes a number of cognitive or behavioral psychotherapies that treat defined psychopathologies using evidence-based techniques and strategies.

CBT is a common form of talk therapy based on the combination of the basic principles from behavioral and cognitive psychology. It is different from historical approaches to psychotherapy, such as the psychoanalytic approach where the therapist looks for the unconscious meaning behind the behaviors and then formulates a diagnosis. Instead, CBT is a "problem-focused" and "action-oriented" form of therapy, meaning it is used to treat specific problems related to a diagnosed mental disorder. The therapist's role is to assist the client in finding and practicing effective strategies to address the identified goals and to alleviate symptoms of the disorder. CBT is based on the belief that thought distortions and maladaptive behaviors play a role in the development and maintenance of many psychological disorders and that symptoms and associated distress can be reduced by teaching new information-processing skills and coping mechanisms. (Full article...)
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  • "Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin." — Ivan Pavlov

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Bloeme Evers-Emden (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈblumə ˌʔeːvərs ˈɛmdə(n)]; 26 July 1926 – 18 July 2016) was a Dutch lecturer and child psychologist who extensively researched the phenomenon of "hidden children" during World War II and wrote four books on the subject in the 1990s. Her interest in the topic grew out of her own experiences during World War II, when she was forced to go into hiding from the Nazis and was subsequently arrested and deported to Auschwitz on the last transport leaving the Westerbork transit camp on 3 September 1944. Together with her on the train were Anne Frank and her family, whom she had known in Amsterdam. She was liberated on 8 May 1945.

In the 1980s, Evers-Emden earned a doctorate in developmental psychology and began interviewing and writing about the phenomenon of "hidden children" from the points of view of the children, their biological parents, their non-Jewish foster parents, and their non-Jewish foster siblings. She was also interviewed for several television documentaries on her remembrances of Anne Frank and her family before they went into hiding and after they were sent to Auschwitz. (Full article...)
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  • ... that Susan Silk developed ring theory when a colleague said that Silk's breast cancer wasn't just about her?
  • ... that food psychology research has found that the COVID-19 pandemic led to both reduced and increased consumption of junk food among different geographical populations and educational backgrounds?
  • ... that fashion psychology is an interdisciplinary field that studies the interaction between human behavior, psychology, and fashion?
  • ... that Fortnite's Tilted Towers was described by critics as the equivalent of "psychological torture" and being "dropped into a meat grinder"?
  • ... that award winner Lillian Comas-Díaz became interested in psychology after consoling classmates recovering from a destructive hurricane?
  • ... that Angéline de Montbrun by Laure Conan is the first psychological novel written by a French Canadian?

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  • ...that the effects of head trauma on memory can be seen by the post-operative results of HM, a patient who has been unable to form any new long-term memories since a surgical procedure performed in the 1950s?

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