This what is… series, which runs weekly on Fridays, explores the meaning of a wide range of terms that come from the field of psychology, psychiatry, and other related areas.  These are all researched posts with supporting references, which means I get to learn something new each week and you get to learn along with me!

The psychology-related terms that have been covered so far on Mental Health @ Home are:

• Amnesia
• Anosognosia (lack of insight)
• Assertiveness
• Attachment theory
• Attention
• Attribution theory
• Autonomy
• Burnout
• Codependency
• Cognitive bias
• Compassion
• Conformity
• Conversion therapy (despite the term “therapy” it is not a recognized form of psychotherapy)
• DARVO (in relation to sexual assault allegations)
• Defense mechanisms
• Diathesis-stress model (to potentially explain causation of mental illness)
• Dreaming
• Ego dystonic & ego syntonic ideas
• Emotional intelligence
• Enmeshment
• Freudian psychoanalytic theory
• Gaslighting
• Hope/hopelessness
• Imposter syndrome
• Insanity
• Invalidation
• Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation
• IQ (intelligence quotient)
• Jealousy and envy
• Judgementality
• Just world fallacy
• Libido
• Locus of control
• Love
• Malingering
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
• Memory
• Motivational interviewing
• Myers-Briggs personality type
• Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
• Neuroticism
• Perfectionism
• Personality trait vs. disorder
• Psychopathy
• Reality
• Recovery (in a mental health sense)
• Repression and suppression
• Resilience
• Safety behaviour (as defined in cognitive behavioural therapy)
• Self-efficacy
• Self-esteem
• Sex vs. gender
• Shame and guilt
• Sleep
• Stockholm syndrome (trauma bonding)
• Stress (psychological)
• Transference & countertransference (in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy)
• Trauma vs PTSD
• Type A personality
• Unconditional positive regard
• Vulnerability

 

Mental Illness Diagnoses and Symptoms

• Antisociality – covers antisocial personality disorder as well as asociality
• Conversion disorder
• False pregnancy (also known as pseudocyesis)
• Folie à deux (also known as shared psychotic disorder)
• Kleptomania
• Melancholia
• Munchausen by proxy (also known as factitious disorder imposed on another)
• Narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder
• Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)
• Paranoia
• Psychomotor retardation
• Seasonal affective disorder (depression or bipolar disorder with seasonal features)
• Ultra rapid cycling (in bipolar disorder)

 

Forms of Therapy

• CBT for pain (Cognitive behavioural therapy)
• Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)
• Exposure and response prevention (ERP)
• Hypnotherapy
• Psychodynamic psychotherapy

 

Is there a term from psychology or another related field that you’d be interested in learning more about?  Let me know!