In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: conformity According to Psychology Today, conformity is "the tendency to align our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours with those around us." From an early age, we learn to mimic the behaviours we see around us. In order to gain … Continue reading What is… conformity
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: personality trait vs. disorder Wikipedia defines personality traits as "habitual patterns of behaviour, thought, and emotion" that are mostly stable across time and context. Some traits fall on a continuum, such as introversion/extraversion. It's unclear the extent to … Continue reading What is… a personality trait vs. disorder
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: Stockholm syndrome Stockholm syndrome is a type of psychological bond that forms between a captor and a hostage. The hostage develops positive feelings toward the captor and their cause, and negative feelings toward law enforcement. While it masquerades … Continue reading What is… Stockholm syndrome?
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: diathesis-stress model Okay this week's term may sound a bit obscure, but bear with me, because it's actually quite relevant. It's a model that is used to explain the course of a mental disorder based on the interaction … Continue reading What is… a diathesis-stress model?
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's terms: transference & countertransference The idea for this post came from Meg at Why does bad advice happen to good people? The concept of transference was first proposed by Sigmund Freud. In therapy, it occurs when a client unconsciously … Continue reading What is… transference & countertransference
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: memory Memory is highly complex. There are multiple different types of memory, and multiple areas of the brain that are involved. Memories not only need to be encoded in the first place, but they also need to be … Continue reading What is… memory?
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: Psychopathy We've all heard the term psychopath, but in popular culture it's not always used accurately. So what does it actually mean? Well, psychopathy is not a diagnosis in the DSM. The diagnosis that comes closest is antisocial personality … Continue reading What is… Psychopathy
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: Codependency We hear about codependency often, particularly in relation to addiction. What does it actually mean, though? GoodTherapy's website says: "Codependency involves sacrificing one’s personal needs to try to meet the needs of others. Someone who is codependent has … Continue reading What is… Codependency
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: Perfectionism Perfectionism is "a set of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors aimed at reaching excessively high unrealistic goal" according to a Brown University site. It tends to be learned through messages early in life that value is based on achievement, … Continue reading What is… Perfectionism
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: Operant conditioning Operant conditioning relates to how actions are affected by stimuli from the environment. The concept was developed by B.F. Skinner in the 1930's, and builds on Pavlov's classical conditioning experiments in which dog were observed to … Continue reading What is… Operant conditioning?
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: neuro-linguistic programming Every so often I read something that refers to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), but I really had no idea what it was, so I thought it was worth taking a closer look. The site nlp.com likens NLP to … Continue reading What is… Neuro-linguistic programming
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: Assertiveness Wikipedia explains that assertiveness can be seen as falling in between passive communication styles and aggressive styles. Assertiveness training is a type of behavioural therapy developed in the 1960's that includes increasing awareness of one's own rights, … Continue reading What is… Assertiveness
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: trauma vs. PTSD I wanted to take a look at the difference between experiencing trauma and having PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Part of this is that I believe that I have experienced trauma, but while it still impacts me … Continue reading What is… trauma vs. PTSD
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: Hope/hopelessness Wikipedia defines hope as "an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large." Psychologist Charles Snyder identified three main … Continue reading What is… hope/hopelessness
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term: vulnerability Wikipedia has a couple of different pages related to this topic: one on social vulnerability, the other on cognitive vulnerability. It says that the work vulnerable derives from the Latin word vulnerare, which means to be wounded. The … Continue reading What is… vulnerability
