Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.
Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.
Clinical psychology is an integration of human science, behavioral science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment, clinical formulation, and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration. In many countries, clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession.
Counseling psychology is a psychological specialty that began with a focus on vocational counseling, but later moved its emphasis to adjustment counseling, and then expanded to cover all normal psychology and psychotherapy. There are many subcategories for counseling psychology, such as marriage and family counseling, rehabilitation counseling, clinical mental health counseling, educational counseling, etc. In each setting, they are all required to follow the same guidelines.
Couples therapy attempts to improve romantic relationships and resolve interpersonal conflicts.
Barry Schwartz is an American psychologist. Schwartz is the Dorwin Cartwright Emeritus Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College and since 2016 has been visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on the intersection of psychology and economics. He frequently publishes editorials in The New York Times, applying his research in psychology to current events. Schwartz's research addresses morality, decision-making and the inter-relationships between behavioral science and society. His books criticize certain philosophical roots of Western societies and expose underlying myths common in both lay and academic psychological theories. In particular, he is a critic of the "rational economic man" model in both psychology and economics. Schwartz studied under David Richmond Williams for his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania where he was a predoctoral fellow with the National Science Foundation.
Diana Adile Kirschner is an American psychologist and author. Early in her career she was involved in the field of integrative psychotherapy, a movement that seeks to find the best practices from among the major schools of therapy. Kirschner's work involved integrating individual therapy, couples therapy, and family therapy into an approach called Comprehensive Family Therapy. The book she coauthored, Comprehensive Family Therapy, was nominated by the American Psychological Association as one of the 100 most important books on family psychology.
Meta-emotion is "an organized and structured set of emotions and cognitions about the emotions, both one's own emotions and the emotions of others". This broad definition of meta-emotion sparked psychologists' interest in the topic, particularly regarding parental meta-emotion philosophy.
Stonewalling is a refusal to communicate or cooperate. Such behaviour occurs in situations such as marriage counselling, diplomatic negotiations, politics and legal cases. Body language may indicate and reinforce this by avoiding contact and engagement with the other party. People use deflection in a conversation in order to render a conversation pointless and insignificant. Tactics in stonewalling include giving sparse, vague responses; refusing to answer questions; and responding to questions with additional questions. Stonewalling can be used as a stalling tactic rather than an avoidance tactic.
Louis John Cozolino is an American psychologist and professor of psychology at Pepperdine University. He holds degrees in philosophy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, theology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA. He has conducted empirical research in schizophrenia, the long-term impact of stress, and child abuse. Cozolino has published numerous articles, several books, and maintains a clinical and consulting practice in Los Angeles.
Gerald R. Weeks is an American author and lecturer. He has published 30 books on psychotherapy, which have been translated into multiple languages. He has published in the fields of both individual and family therapy, although he is best known for his work in sex and couple's therapy. Weeks is the founder of the Systems Approach to Sex Therapy as well as the founder of the Intersystem Approach to therapy which has been called one of the most ambitious efforts to develop an integrative approach to psychotherapy. He was a professor in the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas from 1999-2017. In 2017, he became Professor Emeritus as he retired from UNLV.
Family therapy is a branch of psychotherapy focused on families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members.
In psychology, emotional safety refers to an emotional state achieved in attachment relationships wherein each individual is open and vulnerable. The concept is primarily used by couples' therapists to describe intimate relationships. When a relationship is emotionally safe, the partners trust each other and routinely give each other the benefit of the doubt in questionable situations. When emotional safety is lost, the partners are inclined to be distrustful, looking for possible hidden meanings and potential threats in each other's words and behaviors.
Stan Tatkin is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT).
Julie Schwartz Gottman is an American clinical psychologist, researcher, speaker and author. Together with her husband and collaborator, John Gottman, she is the co-founder of The Gottman Institute – an organization dedicated to strengthening relationships through research-based products and programs. She is the co-creator of the Sound Relationship House Theory, Gottman Method Couples Therapy, and The Art and Science of Love weekend workshop for couples, among other programs.
The Cascade Model of Relational Dissolution is a relational communications theory that proposes four critically negative behaviors that lead to the breakdown of marital and romantic relationships. The model is the work of psychological researcher John Gottman, a professor at the University of Washington and founder of The Gottman Institute, and his research partner, Robert W. Levenson. This theory focuses on the negative influence of verbal and nonverbal communication habits on marriages and other relationships. Gottman's model uses a metaphor that compares the four negative communication styles that lead to a relationship's breakdown to the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, wherein each behavior, or horseman, compounds the problems of the previous one, leading to total breakdown of communication.
Froma Walsh is an American clinical psychologist and family therapist. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Chicago Center for Family Health and the Mose and Sylvia Firestone Professor Emerita at the University of Chicago.
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is a 1999 book by John Gottman, which details seven principles for couples to improve their marriage and the "Four Horseman" to watch out for, that usually herald the end of a marriage. The book was based on Gottman's research in his Family Research Lab, known as the "Love Lab", where he observed more than 650 couples over 14 years.
David Morris Schnarch ; September 18, 1946, in New York City, New York – October 8, 2020, in Evergreen, Colorado) was an American couples, sex and trauma therapist, clinical psychologist and urologist.
Constance Ruth Ahrons was an American psychotherapist. She was an early advocate of collaborative divorce.
