Core terms
The vocabulary of the inner life.
The concepts everyone half-knows — the unconscious, attachment, meaning, the shadow — set down in plain language, each tied to the thinkers who gave it shape.
The Unconscious
The reservoir of feelings, urges and memories that sit outside of awareness yet shape what we do.
Defense Mechanisms
The mind’s quiet strategies — denial, projection, repression — for keeping anxiety at a distance.
Transference
Redirecting feelings about people from your past onto someone in the present.
Id, Ego & Superego
A model of the psyche as appetite, negotiator and conscience, forever in conversation.
The Shadow
The disowned parts of ourselves we’d rather not see — and must, to become whole.
Archetypes
Universal patterns — the Mother, the Hero, the Trickster — that recur across human imagination.
Collective Unconscious
A shared, inherited layer of the psyche holding humanity’s common symbols.
Individuation
The lifelong work of becoming the whole, distinct person you already are underneath.
Unconditional Positive Regard
Accepting a person fully, without conditions — the soil in which change can grow.
Congruence
When your outer expression matches your inner experience. Being genuinely yourself.
Self-Actualization
Becoming everything you are capable of becoming — the top of Maslow’s pyramid.
Cognitive Distortions
Habitual thinking traps — catastrophizing, all-or-nothing — that bend reality.
Automatic Thoughts
The instant, unbidden interpretations that flash up before you notice them.
Core Beliefs & Schemas
Deep rules about self, others and the world, often written in childhood.
The Will to Meaning
Frankl’s claim that our primary drive is not pleasure or power, but meaning.
Existential Vacuum
The hollow, bored or restless feeling when life seems to lack purpose.
Hierarchy of Needs
From safety to belonging to esteem to growth — a ladder of human motivation.
Peak Experiences
Rare moments of awe and wholeness that feel timeless and complete.
Stream of Consciousness
James’ image of the mind as a flowing river of thought, never the same twice.
Habit
The grooves of repeated action that make character — “the great flywheel of society.”
Attachment Styles
Secure, anxious, avoidant — the early templates for how we bond and seek closeness.
The Secure Base
A trusted figure from which we venture out and to which we safely return.
Basic Anxiety
Horney’s sense of feeling small and alone in a world that feels potentially hostile.
Real vs. Idealized Self
The tension between who you authentically are and the perfect self you feel you should be.
Operant Conditioning
Behavior is shaped by its consequences — what gets rewarded gets repeated.
Reinforcement
Any consequence that makes a behavior more likely to happen again.
Flow
Complete absorption in a challenge that perfectly meets your skill — time disappears.
The Stages of Grief
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — not a line, but a weather.
From concept to question
A term is just an idea until you apply it to your own life.
Psipas turns each of these into a question you can actually answer.