Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction with adults, to help a person change behavior and overcome problems in desired ways. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. There is also a range of psychotherapies designed for children and adolescents, which typically involve play, such as sandplay. Certain psychotherapies are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders. Others have been criticized as pseudoscience.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is an idea in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological Review. There is little scientific basis to the idea: Maslow himself noted this criticism. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. He then created a classification system which reflected the universal needs of society as its base and then proceeding to more acquired emotions.
Constructivism is a view in the philosophy of science which maintains that scientific knowledge is constructed by the scientific community, who seek to measure and construct models of the natural world. According to the constructivist, natural science therefore consists of mental constructs that aim to explain sensory experience and measurements.
Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy which emphasizes personal responsibility, and focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist–client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result of their overall situation. It was developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s, and was first described in the 1951 book Gestalt Therapy.
Counseling psychology is a psychological specialty that encompasses research and applied work in several broad domains: counseling process and outcome; supervision and training; career development and counseling; and prevention and health. Some unifying themes among counseling psychologists include a focus on assets and strengths, person–environment interactions, educational and career development, brief interactions, and a focus on intact personalities.
New Mexico State University is a public research university with its main campus in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded on September 17, 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in the state of New Mexico and one of two flagship universities in New Mexico. Total enrollment across all campuses as of 2017 was 21,874, with branch campuses in Alamogordo, Carlsbad, Doña Ana County and Grants, and with extension and research centers across New Mexico.
Arnold Mindell is an American author, therapist and teacher in the fields of transpersonal psychology, body psychotherapy, social change and spirituality. He is known for extending Jungian dream analysis to body symptoms, promoting ideas of ‘deep democracy,’ and interpreting concepts from physics and mathematics in psychological terms. Mindell is the founder of process oriented psychology, also called Process Work, a development of Jungian psychology influenced by Taoism, shamanism and physics.
The Hakomi Method is a form of mindfulness-centered somatic psychotherapy developed by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s.
Transnational feminism refers to both a contemporary feminist paradigm and the corresponding activist movement. Both the theories and activist practices are concerned with how globalization and capitalism affect people across nations, races, genders, classes, and sexualities. This movement asks to critique the ideologies of traditional white, classist, western models of feminist practices from an intersectional approach and how these connect with labor, theoretical applications, and analytical practice on a geopolitical scale.
Marilyn Frye is an American philosopher and radical feminist theorist. She is known for her theories on sexism, racism, oppression, and sexuality. Her writings offer discussions of feminist topics, such as: white supremacy, male privilege, and gay and lesbian marginalization. Although she approaches the issues from the perspective of justice, she is also deeply engaged with the metaphysics, epistemology, and moral psychology of social categories.
Indigenous psychology is defined by Kim and Berry (1993) as "the scientific study of human behavior or mind that is native, that is not transported from other regions, and that is designed for its people." Indigenous psychology generally advocates examining knowledge, skills and beliefs people have about themselves and studying them in their natural contexts. Theories, concepts and methods are developed to correspond with psychological phenomena. Indigenous psychology explicitly advocates for incorporating both the content and the context of research. Indigenous psychology is considered necessary since existing psychological theories are not necessarily universal, and may often represent the psychology and cultural traditions of Europe and North America. "Indigenous psychology seeks to discover how the cultural views, theories, assumptions and classifications coupled with overarching social institutions influence psychological topics in each respective culture (2007). Indigenous psychologies are rooted in the systematic influences of formal, political and educational institutions as well as social factors that have and will continue to change the state of psychology. These psychologies grow out of the basic, political, economic, religious, and social components of each culture. Indigenous psychologies usually use two distinct categories of psychological knowledge; scientific and applied knowledge reflected in scientific and professional psychology. Many indigenous countries prioritize these two categories usually based on the application of psychological knowledge to overcome challenges facing their culture, such as strengthening education, employment, health, population control and religious conflict rather than attempting to fund new scientific research with limited resources (2007).
Madeleine Leininger was a nursing theorist, nursing professor and developer of the concept of transcultural nursing. First published in 1961, her contributions to nursing theory involve the discussion of what it is to care.
Psychiatric rehabilitation, also known as psych social rehabilitation, and sometimes simplified to psych rehab by providers, is the process of restoration of community functioning and well-being of an individual diagnosed in mental health or emotional disorder and who may be considered to have a psychiatric disability.
Les Greenberg is a Canadian psychologist born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is one of the originators and primary developers of Emotion-Focused Therapy for individuals and couples. He is a professor emeritus of psychology at York University in Toronto, and also director of the Emotion-Focused Therapy Clinic in Toronto. His research has addressed questions regarding empathy, psychotherapy process, the therapeutic alliance, and emotion in human functioning.
International or global psychology is an emerging branch of psychology that focuses on the worldwide enterprise of psychology in terms of communication and networking, cross-cultural comparison, scholarship, practice, and pedagogy. Often, the terms international psychology, global psychology, transnational psychology, and cross-cultural psychology are used interchangeably, but their purposes are subtly and importantly different: Global means worldwide, international means across and between nations, transnational means to transcend the nation-state, cross-cultural means across cultures. In contrast, the term “multicultural” is more often used to refer to ethnic and other cultural differences existing within a given nation rather than to global or international comparisons.
Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?", and "Why do we know what we know?". Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.
Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology from a feminist standpoint.
Springer Publishing is an American publishing company of academic journals and books, focusing on the fields of nursing, gerontology, psychology, social work, counseling, public health, and rehabilitation (neuropsychology). It was established in 1950 by Bernhard Springer, a great-grandson of Julius Springer, and is based on the 15th floor of the Salmon Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
Luciano L'Abate was an Italian psychologist working in the USA. He was the father of relational theory and author, co-author, editor or co-editor of more than 55 books in the field of American psychology.
Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, marriage and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with 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.
