Psychology TODAY

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depressive disease or manic depressive psychosis, is a disorder characterized by unusual fluctuations in mood and ability to function of the person. To better understand the variability of mood, we can think of the thermostat of a house: the task of the thermostat is to keep the temperature stable and regular and to respond to changes in the surrounding environment. The limbic system of our brain represents the thermostat of the state of mind and is responsible...

People suffering from eating disorders (DCA) have specific difficulties in their relationship with food and their bodies that significantly affect their quality of life. At the diagnostic level, three...

What is social phobia and how does it manifest itself? Social phobia or Social Anxiety Disorder is an anxiety disorder, in which the characteristic fear consists in believing to be observed and judged negatively in social situations or during the performance of an activity in public. The person affected by the disorder generally has this fear when talking to others, when doing or saying something while others are watching him or even simply if there is a chance to attract the attention of others;...

Strange behaviour in a child raises doubts among parents and family members about the need for counselling from a child psychologist. When the intervention of an external expert is needed, it is first of all important not to worry and to rely on the skills of those who deal with child psychology to solve attitudes that hide a discomfort in the child. When should I go to a child psychologist and what are the behaviours that show psychological discomfort for which the intervention of an expert is...

Applied psychology can be defined as psychology placed at the service of real life, because its ultimate goal is to solve problems related to everyday life. The main tools of applied psychology are the theories on human behaviour and on the functioning of cognitive processes and for this reason it cannot ignore theoretical psychology. Theoretical psychology, in fact, provides the applied psychology with the conceptual assumptions necessary to act effectively. Applied psychology in turn is divided...

At the beginning of the 19th century, new approaches to psyche based on physiology began to be developed, which turned the organism into the object of application of strict natural-scientific methods, first of all, of experiment. The scientific approach is aimed at the production and application in practice of objective, most reliable knowledge about nature, society, man and his psyche. In search of such knowledge science uses: There are two main ways of empirical cognition: observation and experiment:...

In the history of Western psychology in the 20th century, there are usually three main directions; behaviorism, psychoanalysis and humanistic psychology. Despite the clear differences and seemingly opposite approaches, behaviorism and psychoanalysis are similar in that they both constructed psychological perceptions without resorting to social and cultural realities. It is this essential flaw in the mentioned directions that was pointed out by representatives of humanistic psychology. They came...

In the very beginning of the XX century the tendency to change the object of psychology, which was initiated by functionalism, has become much stronger and acquired in the work of American psychologist John Watson (1878-1958) the character of scientific revolution in psychology...

Memory - an integrated mental reflection of a person's past interaction with reality, the information fund of his or her life activities. Ability to store information and selectively update it, to use it to regulate behavior - the main property of the brain, providing the interaction of an individual with the environment. Memory integrates life experience, provides continuous development of human culture and individual life activity. On the basis of memory a person is guided in the present and anticipates the future...

Consciousness is the highest level of reflection by the person of reality as a result of what knowledge and transformation of world around is reached if mentality is considered from materialistic positions, and actually human form of mental beginning of being if mentality is treated from idealistic position. In history of psychology the problem of consciousness is the most difficult and least developed. Regardless of what worldview positions the researchers of consciousness adhered to, the so-called reflexive ability, i...