Psychoanalysis was founded by Dr. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) who revolutionised our thinking about the human mind. Dr. Freud’s psychoanalysis is both theory and therapy, and his psycho-analytic theory forms the basis for many current psychodynamic theories. Freud was the first…
Time-limited therapy, also known as short-term or brief therapy, is a valuable form of therapy and can improve people’s lives. Arranged within a set period of time, usually up to ten sessions, this type of therapy can be more beneficial to some clients in certain circumstances than longer-term
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a practical talking therapy that helps people with problems and issues by addressing and changing how they think and behave. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy focuses on the present problems that are happening now and the relationships between thoughts…
Based on the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, attachment theory has its origins in the 1930’s. Attachment theory combined Bowlby’s interest in the link between maternal deprivation and personality development with Ainsworth’s interest in security theory. Their collaboration began in…
With text messages, online networking and email so easy, talking to another person may seem old-fashioned. These days, communication is abbreviated and electronic. A quick text message or a short email is usually enough to get our message across. But humans have been talking to each…
First identified in 1982 by social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling, the broken windows theory suggests that broken windows that are not quickly repaired will encourage people to break more windows in the same neighbourhood. According to this theory, broken windows not only…
The French novelist Marcel Proust said, ‘It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom: our body.’ Proust was making the point that only in illness do we become aware of our bodies. Through pain,…
Born on New Year’s Day, 1879, in a village a few miles from Swansea, Alfred Ernest Jones first encountered the work of Freud in 1905. He became intrigued by ‘a man in Vienna who actually listened with attention to every word his patients said to him.’ This approach was new to Jones, …
The first world war soldier’s pocket book contained, among other things, an informal will. These books were carried by all servicemen throughout the war. For many years, the last wills and testaments of nearly 300,000 soldiers who died in battle were left decaying and unpreserved in…
In his behavioural study written while at Harvard University, Karthik Narayanaswami explains how various forms of cognitive bias were used throughout the Nazi propaganda poster campaign to help perpetuate racism and hatred across Germany. It was only through this manipulation of the…
