Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, usually called EMDR, is a psychotherapy approach developed to help people process traumatic memories and reduce the distress attached to them. It is best known as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, but it has…
Global Workspace Theory is one of the most influential scientific theories of consciousness. It tries to explain why some information in the brain becomes conscious while most information remains unconscious. At any moment, the nervous system processes an enormous amount…
Humans love sports because sports concentrate many of the deepest forces in human nature: play, competition, belonging, skill, beauty, risk, emotion, identity, and story. A game is never only a game. It is a structured drama in which bodies, rules,…
The difference between an introvert and an extrovert is one of the most familiar ideas in personality psychology, yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. In everyday language, introverts are often described as shy, quiet, private, or reserved,…
Psychoanalysis is one of the most influential and controversial movements in the history of psychology. Founded by Sigmund Freud in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, psychoanalysis changed how people think about the mind, childhood, dreams, desire, trauma, sexuality,…
Video games are addictive for some people because they combine reward, challenge, identity, social belonging, progress, escape, and control into an experience that the brain finds unusually compelling. Unlike many passive forms of entertainment, games respond to the player. They…
Cognitive dissonance is one of the most important concepts in modern psychology because it explains a strange feature of human behavior: people often protect their beliefs even when those beliefs conflict with evidence, values, or actions. A person may know…
Overthinking is one of the most common ways the human mind turns against itself. A person replays a conversation for hours, analyzes a text message from every possible angle, imagines future disasters, questions past choices, or becomes trapped in endless…
People judge others constantly, often before they realize they are doing it. A stranger walks into a room, and within seconds the mind begins forming impressions: confident or insecure, trustworthy or suspicious, attractive or unattractive, intelligent or careless, familiar or…
Missing a toxic relationship can feel confusing, humiliating, and even frightening. A person may know the relationship was unhealthy, remember the manipulation, criticism, instability, betrayal, or emotional exhaustion, and still feel pulled back toward it. They may miss the person…
People often believe they are pursuing happiness, but much of human life is spent chasing things that do not actually satisfy them. A person may spend years trying to earn a title they secretly dislike, impress people they do not…
The question “Is suicide illegal?” begins with a complication: in many modern countries, suicide itself is no longer illegal. A person who dies by suicide cannot be punished, and in most contemporary legal systems, a person who survives a suicide…