Portal:Psychology
The Psychology Portal
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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.
A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior. Others explore the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors.
Psychologists are involved in research on perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, subjective experiences, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. Psychologists' interests extend to interpersonal relationships, psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas within social psychology. They also consider the unconscious mind. Research psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Some, but not all, clinical and counseling psychologists rely on symbolic interpretation. (Full article...)
Selected article -
The Lafargue Mental Health Clinic, more commonly known as the Lafargue Clinic, was a mental health clinic that operated in Harlem, Manhattan, New York, from 1946 until 1958. The clinic was named for French Marxist physician Paul Lafargue and conceived by German-American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who recognized the dire state of mental health services for blacks in New York. With the backing of black intellectuals Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, as well as members of the church and community, the clinic operated out of the parish house basement of St. Philip's Episcopal Church and was among the first to provide low-cost psychiatric health services to the poor, especially for poor blacks who either could not afford treatment at New York hospitals or faced racial discrimination from doctors and other hospital staff. The staff consisted entirely of volunteers, and Wertham and Hilde Mosse were the clinic's lead doctors.
Though the clinic only operated for 12 years, Wertham and Mosse's experiences from Lafargue were cited in a court decision to integrate schools in Wilmington, Delaware, and later in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that separate black and white schools were unconstitutional. Wertham would use case studies from his time at the clinic to support his later arguments that comic books caused juvenile delinquency, as evidenced in his 1954 work Seduction of the Innocent. (Full article...)
Selected image -
Corridor in the Asylum, by Vincent van Gogh, painted during his voluntary hospitalization for symptoms of mental illness
image credit: public domain
Quotes -
- "Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality." — Jean Piaget
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Selected biography -
Alfred Ernest Jones FRCP MRCS (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and became its leading exponent in the English-speaking world. As President of both the International Psychoanalytical Association and the British Psycho-Analytical Society in the 1920s and 1930s, Jones exercised a formative influence in the establishment of their organisations, institutions and publications. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that some researchers have studied Tetris as a potential form of psychological treatment?
- ... that Pan Shu had to write psychological theory in secret during the Cultural Revolution?
- ... that the first day of filming of the psychological thriller Farah coincided with the beginning of the 2019 Lebanese protests?
- ... that diverse fields study the mind, including psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy?
- ... that a study of people who reported experiences of alien abduction found that many exhibited characteristics consistent with fantasy-prone personality?
- ... that Susan Silk developed ring theory when a colleague said that Silk's breast cancer wasn't just about her?
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More did you know -
- ...that Dr. Chris Hatcher convinced the jury in a capital punishment case without having interviewed the defendant?
- ...that Les Parrott, a professor of clinical psychology, a motivational speaker, and a Nazarene minister, co-created, along with his wife, the eHarmony Marriage program? (eHarmony logo pictured)
- ...that Claudia Blum de Barberi is a Colombian politician and psychologist, who became the first woman to ever be elected President of the Congress of Colombia?
- ...that the book The Psychology of The Simpsons uses the corresponding TV series to analyze topics in psychology including clinical psychology, cognition and Pavlovian conditioning?
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