Psychology For Dummies

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Before I provide a definition of psychology, I want you to take a few minutes to jot down some of your ideas on what psychology is. Warning With this icon, I’m trying to alert you to information that is a must know if you’re going to learn psychology.

The cognitive framework centers on the mental processing of information, including the specific functions of attention, concentration, reasoning, problem solving, and memory. Cognitive psychologists are interested in the mental plans and thoughts that guide and cause behavior and affect how people feel. Intelligence testing and information-processing theories are examples that fall within the cognitive metatheory. In a friendly, jargon-free style, clinical psychologist and teacher Adam Cash uses practical examples to delve deep into the maze of the human mind: from the basic hardware, software, and "wetware" of our brains to the mysteries of consciousness and the murkier reaches of abnormal behavior. He also provides profound insights into our wants and needs, the differences between psychological approaches, and how positive psychology can help you lead the “good life” that fulfills you most. Humanistic psychologists also believe that the most fundamental aspect of being human is a subjective experience. This may not be an accurate reflection of the real world, but a person can only act in terms of their own private experience subjective perception of reality. How we see ourselves, which is important to good psychological health. Self-image includes the influence of our body image on inner personality. When I try to imagine all the reasons people do what they do, what they use to do it, and how they do it, I often run with a mad-scientist approach. I’ve always thought that one of the best ways to answer the why, what, and how questions would be to think about building a person and then set that person out performing the tasks of personhood, doing what persons do. Well, I'm not talking about actually building one like Dr. Frankenstein did — out of parts and brains and electricity — but creating a blueprint of a person’s mind and behavior, performing functions, embedded in context, like a performance space of sorts, in the way that basketball players play basketball, singers give performances, and people do people stuff.So I guess my metaphor is Frankenstein's Monster. Maybe think about it as Frankenstein’s Machine or Dr. Cash’s Machine or maybe even a Monster Machine. Why? In your own life, have you ever felt like just another nameless face in the crowd? Has your life ever seemed as if it’s controlled by the winds of chance? How did it feel? Probably not very good. Feeling like you have choices — and making good choices — gives you a sense of true being and affirms your existence. That’s the case with most people anyway, and psychologists who work within the humanistic and existential metatheory believe that behavior is simply a result of choice. Sociocultural Client-centered therapy aims to increase clients’ self-worth and decrease the incongruence between the self-concept and the ideal self. The psychoanalytic/psychodynamic metatheory emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes, early child development, personality, the self, attachment patterns, and relationships. This approach explores how these mental and developmental processes interact with the challenges of life and everyday demands to affect the person you are and how you behave.

I think that everybody is interested in people, their thoughts, emotions, and behavior. People are fascinating, and that includes you! Humans often defy explanation and evade prediction. Figuring people out can be pretty hard. Just when you think that you’ve figured someone out, bang, he surprises you. Now I know that some of you may be thinking, Actually, I’m a pretty good judge of people. I’ve got a handle on things. If that’s the case, that’s great! Some folks do seem to have a more intuitive understanding of people than others. For the rest of us though, there’s psychology. About This Book Finally, these whole experiences should be looked at through introspection. Introspection is the careful searching of one’s inner subjective experiences. Humanism rejects scientific methodology: As the approach views the individual as unique, it does not believe that scientific measurements of their behavior are appropriate. Critical Evaluation Strengths But hey, if I can write an entire book on psychology, I think you can read an entire book on this stuff. Besides, I think you’ll like it. Psychology is a great subject. Enjoy! Part 1 Getting Started with Psychology IN THIS PART … Take the mind for example. Most people agree that they have a mind and that others (well, most others) have one too. But where does this mind exist? Psychologists accept that the mind exists in, or is synonymous with, the brain. The biological metatheory is integrated into the biopsychosocial model because of this component. You may say that, just as digestion is what the stomach does, mind is what the brain does. Thinking about the role of the mind

When to call a mental health professional

Communicating, including verbal and nonverbal expressions such as body language, gestures, speech, and language It is the only approach that explicitly states that people have free will, but its position on this topic is somewhat incoherent as on one hand, it argues that people have free will. Remember We’re all psychologists really. Some of us just happen to be professional psychologists. The difference between a professional psychologist and a non-professional psychologist is really a matter of degree (get it?), separated by focus, time spent, materials consumed, and methods used. Over the years, I have been asked (sometimes respectfully and nicely, sometimes not) these questions: What makes you better at this than me? What do you know that I don’t? Well, I believe it’s really a matter of degree, perspective, and the psychologist tools I use to see and do the psychologist thing. Professionals in any field seem to immerse themselves in it. Again, it's a matter of degree. We all occupy the space of a psychologist to one degree or another. Psychologists just spend more time engaged in conscious and deliberate effort to stay in that space and look at the world from that viewpoint. We spend our time and careers occupying that space and doing the psychologist thing, occasionally coming out of the trance to share what we have seen, think, and found to be objectively true, at least as far as science allows us. But ultimately, psychology is only one way of looking at people and the world they interact with. Like all other carbon-based living organisms on planet Earth, human beings are staying alive machines. I’m not saying there is no meaning to life. Quite the contrary; I’m saying that the function of life is to be alive, to stay alive, and to perpetuate life. But there’s got to be more than that, right? Wrong book. Try Philosophy For Dummies or Religion For Dummies. What?