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
• Antisociality
• Assertiveness
• Attachment theory
• Attention
• Attribution theory
• Autonomy
• Burnout
• CBT for pain
• Codependency
• Cognitive bias
• Compassion
• Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)
• Conformity
• Conversion disorder
• Conversion therapy (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)
• Ego Dystonic & Ego Syntonic
• Exposure and response prevention (ERP)
• Folie à deux (shared psychotic disorder)
• Gaslighting
• Hope/hopelessness
• Hypnotherapy
• Insanity
• Invalidation
• Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation
• Jealousy and envy
• Judgementality
• Just world fallacy
• Kleptomania
• 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 (NLP)
• Neuroticism
• Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)
• Paranoia
• Perfectionism
• Personality trait vs. disorder
• Psychodynamic psychotherapy
• Psychomotor retardation
• Psychopathy
• Reality
• Recovery
• Resilience
• Safety behaviour (cognitive behavioural therapy)
• Seasonal affective disorder (depression or bipolar disorder with seasonal features)
• Self-efficacy
• Self-esteem
• Sex vs. gender
• Shame and guilt
• Stockholm syndrome (trauma bonding)
• Stress (psychological)
• Transference & countertransference (in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy)
• Trauma vs PTSD
• Type A personality
• Ultra rapid cycling (in bipolar disorder)
• Unconditional positive regard
• Vulnerability

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