Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques that deal in part with the unconscious mind, and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Sigmund Freud, whose work stemmed partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Freud developed and refined the theory and practice of psychoanalysis until his death in 1939. In an encyclopedic article, he identified the cornerstones of psychoanalysis as "the assumption that there are unconscious mental processes, the recognition of the theory of repression and resistance, the appreciation of the importance of sexuality and of the Oedipus complex." Freud's colleagues Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung developed offshoots of psychoanalysis which they called individual psychology (Adler) and analytical psychology (Jung), although Freud himself wrote a number of criticisms of them and emphatically denied that they were forms of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions by neo-Freudian thinkers, such as Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack Sullivan.
George Philip Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena.
Perversion is a form of human behavior which deviates from what is considered to be orthodox or normal. Although the term perversion can refer to a variety of forms of deviation, it is most often used to describe sexual behaviors that are considered particularly abnormal, repulsive or obsessive. Perversion differs from deviant behavior, in that the latter covers areas of behavior for which perversion would be too strong a term. It is often considered derogatory, and, in psychological literature, the term paraphilia has been used as a replacement, though this term is controversial, and deviation is sometimes used in its place.
Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally, in addition or opposition to employing the scientific method, it also relies on symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, although these traditions have tended to be less pronounced than in other social sciences, such as sociology. Psychologists study phenomena such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also study the unconscious mind.
George Armitage Miller was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and more broadly, of cognitive science. He also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics. Miller wrote several books and directed the development of WordNet, an online word-linkage database usable by computer programs. He authored the paper, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two," in which he observed that many different experimental findings considered together reveal the presence of an average limit of seven for human short-term memory capacity. This paper is frequently cited by psychologists and in the wider culture. Miller won numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science.
Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution is a 2002 book by Francis Fukuyama. In it, he discusses the potential threat to liberal democracy that use of new and emerging biotechnologies for transhumanist ends poses.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and Nobel Prizes. As of 2016 the publisher is a division of Macmillan, whose parent company is the German publishing conglomerate Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
Sex therapy is a therapeutic strategy for the improvement of sexual function and treatment of sexual dysfunction. This includes dysfunctions such as premature ejaculation and delayed ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, lack of sexual interest or arousal, and painful sex ; as well as problems imposed by atypical sexual interests (paraphilias), gender dysphoria, highly overactive libido or hypersexuality, a lack of sexual confidence, and recovering from sexual abuse ; and also includes sexual issues related to aging, illness, or disability.
Pascal Robert Boyer is an American cognitive anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist of French origin, mostly known for his work in the cognitive science of religion. He taught at the University of Cambridge for eight years, before taking up the position of Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches classes on evolutionary psychology and anthropology. He was a Guggenheim Fellow and a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Lyon, France. He studied philosophy and anthropology at University of Paris and Cambridge, with Jack Goody, working on memory constraints on the transmission of oral literature. Boyer is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Michael S. Gazzaniga is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the USA, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, the study of the neural basis of mind. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.
Franklin Edward Kameny was an American gay rights activist. He has been referred to as "one of the most significant figures" in the American gay rights movement.
Paul Raeburn was an American author and science expositor, known for his book Do Fathers Matter? (2014) concerning the paternal influence on language acquisition and adolescent sexuality, among other topics.
Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2023, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020.
Glenn Daniel Wilson is a psychologist best known for his work on attitude and personality measurement, sexual attraction, deviation and dysfunction, partner compatibility, and psychology applied to performing arts. He is a fellow of the British Psychological Society and makes frequent media appearances as a psychology expert, especially in TV news and documentaries.
George Musser is a contributing editor for Scientific American magazine in New York and the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to String Theory and of Spooky Action at a Distance.
Alison Gopnik is an American professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her work in the areas of cognitive and language development, specializing in the effect of language on thought, the development of a theory of mind, and causal learning. Her writing on psychology and cognitive science has appeared in Science, Scientific American, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, New Scientist, Slate and others. Her body of work also includes four books and over 100 journal articles.
Within the work of the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), orgastic potency is a human's natural ability to experience an orgasm with certain psychosomatic characteristics and resulting in full sexual gratification.
Caleb Asa Scharf is a British-American astronomer and popular science author. He is currently the senior scientist for astrobiology at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. He formerly served as the director of the multidisciplinary Columbia Astrobiology Center at Columbia University, New York.
Jonathan Balcombe is an ethologist and author. He is formerly Director of Animal Sentience with the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy, and Department Chair for Animal Studies with Humane Society University, in Washington, DC. He lectures internationally on animal behavior and the human-animal relationship. He also served as Associate Editor of the journal Animal Sentience from 2015 to 2019.
Autocunnilingus is a form of masturbation involving the oral stimulation of one's own vulva. Performing cunnilingus on oneself requires an unusually high degree of flexibility such as that of contortionists or double-jointed people.
