A Social Psychological View of Burnout

Have you ever been in this situation: you figure out something you love and decide to make it into your profession; soon thereafter, you find yourself diappointed and no longer deriving the same enjoyment from once once beloved activity.Psychologists have studied these types of phenomena with children and adults. They call it the Overjustification...

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What exactly is an Identity Crisis?

The term "identity crisis" was coined by Erik Erikson (1909 - 1994) a German-Jewish psychologist who was educated and was analyzed by Anna Freud, Freud's daughter. Erikson is famous for his contributions to personality and developmental psychology. He proposed that development occured in a series of 8 psychosexual stages. Each stage proposed a certain...

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How to Diagnose Your Friends with OCD

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder ("OCD") is a pretty fascinating disorder. One in 50 people are said to have it and if you've ever taken a class in Abnormal Psychology, you probably diagnosed yourself with it too. Here's the nuts and bolts of the disorder, including some tips for identifying it.DSM-IV CriteriaThe predominant guide to diagnosing psychological...

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Hello World!

I am pleased to announce the creation of my new blog, The Amateur Psychologist. I have a few aims for this blog that I would love to share with you.1. Bring research to the people. Researchers in psychology tend to do most of their "posting" in academic journals. As fun as they are to read (yawn), most people don't subscribe to these journals. There is a wide chasm between rigorous, academic research and mainstream understanding of psychology and human behavior. We need a conduit to escort research...

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