In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is motivational interviewing. Motivational interviewing (MI) is a therapeutic communication approach. It’s often used in the field of addictions, but it’s got some very useful tidbits that are more broadly applicable to motivation for any sort of change. […]
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is memory. Memory is highly complex. There are multiple different types, as well as multiple areas of the brain that are involved. Memories not only need to be encoded in the first place, but they also need to
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is codependency. We hear about codependency often, particularly in relation to addiction, and it’s sometimes confused with dependency. What does it actually mean, though? Dependency vs. codependency While dependency involves relying on another person to help meet one’s own
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is perfectionism. Perfectionism involves self-defeating thoughts and behaviours associated with unrealistic expectations of flawlessness. This causes significant levels of stress and feelings of failure, and it contributes to the use of maladaptive coping mechanisms. It can involve a
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is operant conditioning. Operant conditioning relates to the way 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 dogs were observed
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is 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 1960s that includes increasing awareness of one’s own
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s terms are trauma vs. PTSD. I wanted to take a look at the difference between experiencing trauma and having PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Personally, I believe that I have experienced trauma, but I don’t meet the criteria for PTSD. So is
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s terms are hope and 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
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What exactly are emotions? Well, there’s no easy answer to that; it depends on who you ask and what their theoretical perspective is. But regardless of how we define them, how do we describe them? That can be easier said than done. There’s even a psychiatric term, alexithymia, for difficulty identifying and articulating emotions. Several
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is vulnerability. The word vulnerable is derived from the Latin word vulnerare, which means to be wounded. There are different ways in which we may be vulnerable, including socially and cognitively. In a diathesis-stress model, vulnerability refers to biological and
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