Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.
Psychology is the study of mind and behavior in humans and non-humans. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. 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.
Stanley Smith Stevens was an American psychologist who founded Harvard's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, studying psychoacoustics, and he is credited with the introduction of Stevens's power law. Stevens authored a milestone textbook, the 1400+ page Handbook of Experimental Psychology (1951). He was also one of the founding organizers of the Psychonomic Society. In 1946 he introduced a theory of levels of measurement widely used by scientists but whose use in some areas of statistics has been criticized. In addition, Stevens played a key role in the development of the use of operational definitions in psychology.
Erik Homburger Erikson was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity crisis.
Psychobiography aims to understand historically significant individuals, such as artists or political leaders, through the application of psychological theory and research.
Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or group.
Neo-Freudianism is a psychoanalytic approach derived from the influence of Sigmund Freud but extending his theories towards typically social or cultural aspects of psychoanalysis over the biological.
Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, as articulated in the second half of the 20th century by Erik Erikson in collaboration with Joan Erikson, is a comprehensive psychoanalytic theory that identifies a series of eight stages that a healthy developing individual should pass through from infancy to late adulthood. According to Erikson's theory the results from each stage, whether positive or negative, influences the results of succeeding stages. Erikson published a book called Childhood and Society in 1950 that made his research well known on the eight stages of psychosocial development. Erikson was originally influenced by Sigmund Freud's psychosexual stages of development. He began by working with Freud's theories specifically, but as he began to dive deeper into biopsychosocial development and how other environmental factors affect human development, he soon progressed past Freud's theories and developed his own ideas. Erikson developed different substantial ways to create a theory about lifespan he theorized about the nature of personality development as it unfolds from birth through old age or death. He argued that the social experience was valuable throughout our life to each stage that can be recognizable by a conflict specifically as we encounter between the psychological needs and the surroundings of the social environment.
A midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in middle-aged individuals, typically 40 to 60 years old. The phenomenon is described as a psychological crisis brought about by events that highlight a person's growing age, inevitable mortality, and possibly lack of accomplishments in life. This may produce feelings of intense depression, remorse, and high levels of anxiety, or the desire to achieve youthfulness or make drastic changes to their current lifestyle or feel the wish to change past decisions and events. Studies on midlife crises show that they are less common than popularly believed, according to Vaillant (2012) in his 75-year longitudinal study on adult development, he found midlife crises were rare experiences for people involved in the study. The term was coined by Elliott Jaques in 1965.
Middle age is the period of a human's life beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. The exact range is subject to academic debate, but commonly the term is used to denote the age range from around 40–45 to around 60–65, although it may begin earlier and end later. This phase of life is marked by gradual physical, cognitive, and social decline in individuals as they age.
In psychology, identity crisis is a stage theory of identity development where it involves resolution of a conflict over the 8 stages of the lifespan. The term was coined by German psychologist Erik Erikson.
The psychosocial approach looks at individuals in the context of the combined influence that psychological factors and the surrounding social environment have on their physical and mental wellness and their ability to function. This approach is used in a broad range of helping professions in health and social care settings as well as by medical and social science researchers.
The University of Cambridge was the birthplace of the 'Analytic' School of Philosophy in the early 20th century. The department is located in the Raised Faculty Building on the Sidgwick Site and is part of the Cambridge School of Arts and Humanities. The Faculty achieved the best possible results from The Times 2004 and the QAA Subject Review 2001 (24/24). In the UK as of 2020, it is ranked second by the Guardian, second by the Philosophical Gourmet Report, and fifth by the QS World University Rankings.
Edward Tory Higgins is the Stanley Schachter Professor of Psychology and Business, and Director of the Motivation Science Center at Columbia University. Higgins' research areas include motivation and cognition, judgment and decision-making, and social cognition. Most of his works focus on priming, self-discrepancy theory, and regulatory focus theory. He is also the author of Beyond Pleasure and Pain: How Motivation Works, and Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence.
The Austen Riggs Center is a psychiatric treatment facility in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was founded by Austen Fox Riggs in 1913 as the Stockbridge Institute for the Study and Treatment of Psychoneuroses before being renamed in honor of Austen Riggs on July 21, 1919.
Donald Eric Capps was an American theologian and William Harte Felmeth Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History is a 1958 book by the psychologist Erik Erikson. It was one of the first psychobiographies of a famous historical figure. Erikson found in Martin Luther a good model of his discovery of "the identity crisis". Erikson was sure he could explain Luther's spontaneous eruption, during a monastery choir practice, "I am not!"
Chris G. Sibley is a Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland and the lead investigator for the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study. Sibley's research focuses on understanding how people's connections with others around them interact with environmental and economic factors to cause change in personality, political attitudes, social values and psychological health over time. In 2014 he was the recipient of the Erik Erikson Award for Early Career Achievement, awarded by the International Society of Political Psychology. Sibley is also the editor of the Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Prejudice, and one of the developers of the Multi-dimensional model of Maori identity and cultural engagement.
Joseph G. Ponterotto is an American psychologist, author and professor. He is currently a tenured professor of counselling psychology and the Coordinator of the Mental Health Counseling Program at Fordham University's Graduate School of Education. He is a licensed psychologist and mental health counsellor, as well as a psychobiographer and multicultural consultant. His research interests are in acculturation, racism, immigration, multicultural counselling and education, qualitative/quantitative research methods including scale development, the history of psychology, and psychobiography.
Margaret Brenman-Gibson (1918–2004) was an American psychologist, among the first to use of hypnosis in the treatment of neurosis resulting from war and related areas. She was the first non-physician to receive full clinical and research psychoanalytic training in America. In 1982 she was one of the first women to receive a Harvard professorship as Clinical Professor of Psychology. She earned a Masters in Anthropology from Columbia University and a doctorate in Psychology from the University of Kansas. She was the only female psychotherapist on the staff at the Austen Riggs Center and was recognized as a notable member of staff at the organization's centenary anniversary, playing a key role in the organization's establishment as a leading psychiatric hospital and treatment center. Her other work includes a biography of Clifford Odets, and narration of the film Erik Erikson: A Life’s Work. She was married to the playwright William Gibson from 1940 until her death in 2004.
