Historically, the treatment of individuals with a substance use disorder (SUD) was left to a small group of professionals who specialized in addiction. Unfortunately, that meant for someone to be treated they had to recognize in themselves the need for help and seek those professionals out.Read More

Cognitive psychology has its roots in cognition, which explores how our mind learns and perceives information. How it processes it, how it stores that information in your memory, and how we retrieve that information. One example is test taking. How do people study and learn information so they can retrieve and share it later on...Read More

One of the most significant benefits of a degree in psychology is gaining a deeper understanding of human behavior. This understanding can be applied to many different industries, including healthcare, education, business, and social work. Employers value employees who can understand human behavior and apply that knowledge to improve their work.Read More

Empathy is typically defined as the ability to share and understand someone else’s feelings and incorporates the ability to understand how a person feels, what they might be thinking, and to share those feelings. When people think of empathy, they often think of shared experiences. For example, most people have fallen sometime during childhood and...Read More

Eastern Kentucky University Online degree programs have once again been ranked among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. This year, EKU’s online bachelor’s degree in psychology ranked in the top 20 for Best Undergraduate Psychology Programs.Read More

Psychology is probably most commonly thought of as a discipline that identifies and treats psychological disorders. And while it’s true that clinical psychologists are important contributors to mental health fields both in terms of advancing clinical science and providing clinical services, there are numerous other branches of psychology that collectively interface with just about every...Read More

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) can be characterized as a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, the need for admiration, and a lack of empathy beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. A core feature is interpersonal dysfunction, which in an extreme form can be physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive. The etiology of this...Read More

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a disorder that is becoming more and more common. ASD is a developmental diagnosis which means it is first apparent during the developmental period around the age of 2 or 3 years. Individuals with ASD have deficits in social communication as well as restricted or repetitive patterns seen in their...Read More

As a society, we are becoming increasingly aware of the impact trauma, particularly complex trauma, has on individual physical and mental health. This has led to increased research on treatments for disorders such as PTSD.  In the field of psychology, this research has focused heavily on the use of evidence-based treatments such as prolonged exposure...Read More

You can watch a couple of excellent documentaries that personalize and localize the opioid epidemic on Netflix, like “Heroin(e)” and “Recovery Boys.” Both documentaries were created by Elaine McMillion Sheldon, who describes herself as an Appalachian filmmaker. She spoke on EKU’s campus recently.Read More