Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic psychology is a school of psychology that emerged in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. It is explicitly concerned with the human dimension of psychology and the human context for the development of psychological theory.

Body Psychotherapy

Body psychotherapy (also known as body-oriented psychotherapy and somatic psychology) is a branch of psychotherapy with origins in the work of Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Reich. Body psychotherapy addresses the body and the mind as a whole with emphasis on the reciprocal relationships within body and mind. It includes an awareness of the client's process as manifested in their body, body language, emotional expression, proxemics, psychosomatics, somatic resonance, and sexuality.

Systemic Therapy

Systemic therapy is a school of psychology which seeks to address people not an individual level, as had been the focus of earlier forms of therapy, but as people in relationship, dealing with the interactions of groups and their interactional patterns and dynamics.
Systemic therapy has its roots in family therapy, or more precisely family systems therapy as it later came to be known. In particular, systemic therapy traces its roots to the Milan school of Mara Selvini Palazzoli, but also derives from the work of Salvador Minuchin, Murray Bowen, Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, as well as Virginia Satir and Jay Haley from MRI in Palo Alto. These early schools of family therapy represented therapeutic adaptations of the larger interdisciplinary field of systems theory which first originated in the fields of biology and physiology.

Brief Therapy

Brief therapy is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches to psychotherapy. It differs from other schools of therapy in that it emphasises a focus on a specific problem and direct intervention. In brief therapy, the therapist takes responsibility for working more pro-actively with the client in order to treat clinical and subjective conditions faster. It also emphasizes precise observation, utilization of natural resources, and temporary suspension of disbelief to consider new perspectives and multiple viewpoints.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a form of depth psychology, the primary focus of which is to reveal the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension. In this way, it is similar to psychoanalysis, however, psychodynamic therapy tends to be more brief and less intensive than psychoanalysis. It also relies on the interpersonal relationship between client and therapist more than other forms of depth psychology. In terms of approach, this form of therapy also tends to be more eclectic than others, taking techniques from a variety of sources, rather than relying on a single system of intervention. It is a focus that has been used in individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, family therapy, and to understand and work with institutional and organizational contexts.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud a study of human psychological functioning and behaviornd his followers, which is devoted to the.

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist (also archaically called an alienist) is a physician who specializes in psychiatry and is certified in treating mental disorders.As part of their evaluation of the patient, psychiatrists are one of only a few mental health professionals who may prescribe psychiatric medication, conduct physical examinations, order and interpret laboratory tests and electroencephalograms, and may order brain imaging studies such as computed tomography or computed axial tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron emission tomography scanning.

Mental health professional

A mental health professional is a person who offers services for the purpose of improving an individual's mental health or to treat mental illness. This broad category includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, psychiatric nurses, mental health counselors as well as many other professionals. These professionals often deal with the same illnesses, disorders, conditions, and issues; however their scope of practice often differs. The most significant difference between mental health professionals are the laws regarding required education and training in the various groupings.

Interpersonal Relationship

An interpersonal relationship is a relatively long-term association between two or more people. This association may be based on emotions like love and liking, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships take place in a great variety of contexts, such as family, friends, marriage, acquaintances, work, clubs, neighborhoods, and churches. They may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and are the basis of social groups and society as a whole. Although humans are fundamentally social creatures, interpersonal relationships are not always healthy. Examples of unhealthy relationships include abusive relationships and codependence.

Psychologist

Psychologist" is an academic, occupational or professional title describing individuals who are either:

Transpersonal Psychology

Transpersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience. A short definition from the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology suggests that transpersonal psychology "is concerned with the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness" (Lajoie and Shapiro, 1992:91). Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, peak experiences, mystical experiences, systemic trance and other metaphysical experiences of living.

Social Psychology (Psychology)

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all of the psychological variables that are measurable in a human being. The statement that others may be imagined or implied suggests that we are prone to social influence even when no other people are present, such as when watching television, or following internalized cultural norms.

Psychophysics

Psychophysics is a subdiscipline of psychology dealing with the relationship between physical stimuli and their subjective correlates, or percepts. Psychophysics has been described variously as “the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation” or, more completely, as “the analysis of perceptual processes by studying the effect on a subject’s experience or behaviour of systematically varying the properties of a stimulus along one or more physical dimensions.” It is a general-purpose theory that can be applied to any sensory system. The techniques of "classical" psychophysics are still widely used, although the theoretical background is heavily influenced by Signal detection theory. Psychophysics is that branch of psychology,which deals with the scientific study of relation between physical stimuli and subjective percepts.

Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is a recent branch of psychology that "studies the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive". Positive psychologists seek "to find and nurture genius and talent", and "to make normal life more fulfilling", not to cure mental illness.

Personality Psychology

Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. One emphasis in this area is to construct a coherent picture of a person and his or her major psychological processes (Bradberry, 2007). Another emphasis views personality as the study of individual differences, in other words, how people differ from each other. A third area of emphasis examines human nature and how all people are similar to one other. These three viewpoints merge together in the study of personality.

Neuropsychology

Neuropsychology is the applied scientific discipline that studies the structure and function of the brain related to specific psychological processes and overt behaviors. The term neuropsychology has been applied to lesion studies in humans and animals. It has also been applied to efforts to record electrical activity from individual cells (or groups of cells) in higher primates (including some studies of human patients).
It is scientific in its approach and shares an information processing view of the mind with cognitive psychology and cognitive science.

Mathematical Psychology

Mathematical psychology is an approach to psychological research that is based on mathematical modeling of perceptual, cognitive and motor processes, and on the establishment of law-like rules that relate quantifiable stimulus characteristics with quantifiable behavior. In practice "quantifiable behavior" is often constituted by "task performance".

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary psychology (EP) attempts to explain mental and psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, that is, as the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system, is common in evolutionary biology. Evolutionary psychology applies the same thinking to psychology.

Experimental Psychology

Experimental psychology approaches psychology as one of the natural sciences, investigates it using the experimental method. The focus of experimental psychology is on discovering the underlying processes behind behavior and the specific nature of mental life. This is in contrast to applied psychology, which employs psychological knowledge to solve real-world problems, and clinical psychology, which aims to treat mental illness with therapy

Emotion

An emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behavior.Emotions are subjective experiences, or experienced from an individual point of view. Emotion is often associated with mood, temperament, personality, and disposition. The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin emovere, where e- (variant of ex-) means 'out' and movere means 'move'.
The related term "motivation" is also derived from movere.

Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings over the course of the life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence and adult development, aging, and the entire life span. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including motor skills and other psycho-physiological processes; cognitive development involving areas such as problem solving, moral understanding, and conceptual understanding; language acquisition; social, personality, and emotional development; and self-concept and identity formation.

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing. It had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka, and in the work of Jean Piaget, who provided a theory of stages/phases that describe children's cognitive development. Cognitive psychologists use psychophysical and experimental approaches to understand, diagnose, and solve problems, concerning themselves with the mental processes which mediate between stimulus and response. Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of algorithms—rules that are not necessarily understood but promise a solution, or heuristics—rules that are understood but that do not always guarantee solutions. Cognitive science differs from cognitive psychology in that algorithms that are intended to simulate human behavior are implemented or implementable on a computer. In other instances, solutions may be found through insight, a sudden awareness of relationships.

Biological Psychology

In psychology, biological psychology, also known as biopsychology, psychobiology, or behavioral neuroscience[1] is the application of the principles of biology to the study of mental processes and behavior. A psychobiologist, for instance, may compare the unfamiliar imprinting behavior in goslings to the early attachment behavior in human infants and construct theory around these two phenomena. Biological psychologists may often be interested in measuring some biological variable, e.g. an anatomical, physiological, or genetic variable, in an attempt to relate it quantitatively or qualitatively to a psychological or behavioral variable, and thus contribute to evidence based practice.

Abnormal Psychology

Abnormal psychology is an academic and applied subfield of psychology involving the scientific study of abnormal thoughts and behavior in order to understand and change abnormal patterns of functioning. The definition of what constitutes 'abnormal' has varied across time and across cultures, and varies among individuals within cultures. Today, persistent abnormal functioning is often associated with a mental disorder. In general, abnormal psychology studies people who are consistently unable to adapt and function effectively in a variety of conditions. An individual's ability to adapt and function can be affected by a number of variables, including one's genetic makeup, physical condition, learning and reasoning, and socialization.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client in problems of living. It aims to increase the individual's sense of well-being and reduce their subjective sense of discomfort. Psychotherapists employ a range of techniques based on experiential relationship building, dialogue, communication and behavior change and that are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family). Psychotherapy may be performed by practitioners with a number of different qualifications, including psychologists, marriage and family therapists, licensed clinical social workers, counselors, psychiatric nurses, and psychiatrists.