This what is… series, which runs every Friday, explores the meaning of a wide range of terms that come from the field of psychology and other related areas.  These are all researched posts with supporting references.

The topics that have previously been covered are:

• Amnesia
• Anosognosia
• Antisociality
• Assertiveness
• Attachment theory
• Attention
• Attribution theory
• Autonomy
• Burnout
• CBT for pain
• Codependency
• Cognitive bias
• Compassion
• Compassion-Focused Therapy
• Conformity
• Conversion disorder
• Conversion therapy (not a recognized form of psychotherapy)
• DARVO (in relation to sexual assault allegations)
• Diathesis-stress model (to potentially explain causation of mental illness)
• Ego Dystonic & Ego Syntonic
• Exposure and response prevention
• Folie à deux (shared psychotic disorder)
• Gaslighting
• Hope/hopelessness
• Hypnotherapy
• Insanity
• Invalidation
• Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation
• Jealousy and envy
• Judgementality
• Locus of control
• Love
• Malingering
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
• Melancholia
• Memory
• Motivational interviewing
• Munchausen by proxy (factitious disorder imposed on another)
• Myers-Briggs personality type
• Narcissism
• Neuro-linguistic programming
• Neuroticism
• Paranoia
• Perfectionism
• Personality trait vs. disorder
• Psychodynamic psychotherapy
• Psychomotor retardation
• Psychopathy
• Reality
• Recovery
• Resilience
• Safety behaviour (in CBT)
• Seasonal affective disorder (depression or bipolar disorder with seasonal features)
• Self-efficacy
• Self-esteem
• Sex vs. gender
• Shame and guilt
• Stockholm syndrome
• Transference & countertransference (in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy)
• Trauma vs PTSD
• Type A personality
• Ultra rapid cycling (in bipolar disorder)
• Unconditional positive regard
• Vulnerability