Psychology

Donald Winnicott was a pediatrician who later became an analyst. He applied the ideas of Melanie Klein (who studied under Freud) to children and adults, developing the concept of the True Self. He believed that we can only grow if we can express our authentic selves...

The humanistic psychology associated with Abraham Maslow and Carl Roger inspired psychoanalytic practices that would distinguish them from earlier psychoanalytic theories. Their identification of needs beyond those described by Freud prompted a change towards therapy...

Different interpretations of Freud's theories of the subconscious emerged fifty years after he first introduced his idea of psychoanalysis, however, it was not until after the Second World war that some of his basic notions were challenged. At the core of Freudian...

Humans have an innate desire to seek pleasure, but they also have an equally strong aversion to pain. Freudian psychoanalysts describe this as the primary motivation behind human behavior. Yet Existentialists such as Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche argued...

In the years following World War II, society in the western world became increasingly individualistic. This was reflected in the prevalence of the psychological theory of humanistic and existentialism thinking during this period. Among the new forms to emerge at this...

Despite being an avid fan of Freudian psychology, French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan upset many traditionalists with his interpretation of the unconscious. Traditional psychoanalysis assumes that the unconscious is not only where our deepest thoughts and feelings...

Alongside the evolution and development of psychoanalysis, psychiatry during the twentieth century became recognized as an increasingly important area of medicine. The two disciplines can be seen as direct opposites, with psychiatrists dismissing psychodynamics as...

Thomas Szasz based his outright rejection of mental illness on the fact that there were no pathological findings that supported it. His views also had a social and political element - by labeling certain behaviors as psychiatric disorders requiring medical treatment,...

While the emphasis in psychoanalytic theory in the latter part of the last century tended to be on individual psychology, Canadian-born psychiatrist Eric Berne focused on interpersonal relationships and interactions. He observed that these interactions followed a...

In the early years, psychology was a very individualistic field. It started out studying what happened within an individual, instead of looking at how they reacted to other people. In the 1930's, however, social psychology came into being. This is where psychologists...