Redefined: The APA Dictionary of Psychology

We’re excited to announce a recent major update to the APA Dictionary of Psychology! Notable as the first content update since the final publication of the print version in 2015, this release features a number of benefits, including

  • revisions of 1,500+ terms related to gender and sexuality; race, ethnicity, and culture; aging and older adulthood; and disabilities and disorders
  • alignment with the APA Inclusive Language Guide and additional APA resources, including removal of binary wording to promote gender inclusivity
  • updated DSM-5-TR diagnostic terminology, and
  • date information for each entry’s most recent update.

With more than 25,000 authoritative entries spanning 90 psychology subfields, this web-based tool is freely available at https://dictionary.apa.org.

Users who access APA PsycArticles on APA PsycNet have integrated access to the dictionary when viewing the HTML version of full-text APA journal articles. Look for the dotted blue underline that links to the dictionary entry.

Definitions are also accessible and highlighted in search engine results. Quickly look up a term from anywhere by typing the word/phrase you want to look up into your browser’s search bar and look for the APA Dictionary in the results.

Screenshot of APA Dictionary of Psychology entry gate-control theory

TIP: Typing dictionary.apa.org or APA Dictionary followed by your desired term into your browser’s search bar may return the APA Dictionary entry as one of the top search results, depending on your search engine (e.g., Googling dictionary.apa.org gate control hypothesis or searching DuckDuckGo for APA dictionary gate control hypothesis returns the APA Dictionary entry for gate-control theory).


The APA Dictionary in Psychology is a landmark reference for terminology in psychology and the behavioral sciences, beginning with its print publication in 2007 and transitioning into an online resource in 2018. To learn more, check out the companion blog post Look up Psychology Terms in the APA Dictionary of Psychology or visit the APA Dictionary to explore on your own!

New Videos Added to APA PsycTherapy (Fall 2023)

 

In September, we added 20 new videos to APA PsycTherapy®, our streaming video database designed to meet the teaching and training needs of psychotherapy students and practitioners. APA PsycTherapy videos are recorded during an unscripted session to provide an authentic example of psychotherapy conducted by an expert therapist.

Four of these new videos are from the recent APA PsycTherapy Video Series, and so contain introduction and discussion segments in addition to the therapy session. 

  • Shame and Anger in Therapy, with Leslie S. Greenberg, lead originator of emotion-focused therapy (EFT)—the video demonstrates and discusses how to help clients process the emotional pairing of shame and anger. This is the first video Dr. Greenberg has created in a number of years.
  • Client Contributions to Therapy, with Kathryn Kline, Amy Greaves, Heidi Levitt, and Jairo Fuertes—focuses on how patients/clients help therapy succeed. 
  • Prolonged Exposure Therapy, with Sheila A. M. Rauch—an evidence-based method for treating posttraumatic stress disorder.
  • Cultural Complexity in Psychotherapy: The ADDRESSING Framework, with Pamela A. Hays, features Dr. Hays demonstrating and discussing her therapy model (a model explained in her best-selling book, Addressing Cultural Complexities in Counseling and Clinical Practice, 4th edition)

Other new videos include:  

  • Emotion Focused Skills Training
  • Integrative Psychotherapy Approach to Navigating Grief
  • Multicultural Therapy Empowering Teen’s Ethnic and Gender Identity
  • Solution-Focused Therapy in Practice
  • Working Through Climate Anxiety and Concerns Related to Having Children

 

Related Resources

Interested in learning more about this accessibility-certified database of recorded psychotherapy sessions? Visit the APA PsycTherapy information page or view brief tutorials on our YouTube playlist for APA PsycTherapy.

An APA PsycTherapy subscription includes a PDF copy of The APA PsycTherapy Teaching Guide, Revised Edition which features a series of exercises for using APA PsycTherapy with students, in clinical supervision settings, psychotherapy researcher training, and more.

 

APA PsycInfo® Webinars for Fall 2023

Interested in strengthening your APA database searching skills? Join us for the next round of APA PsycInfo® webinars designed for students, faculty, and anyone else who wants to learn more about how to search APA PsycInfo more effectively!

APA’s expert trainers will lead three different webinars this fall, so you can choose the one that best matches your interest.

Details and registration links are below; all times are in U.S. Eastern.

APA PsycInfo: Beginner Search

This 45 minute session is for anyone who is new to searching the behavioral sciences literature.

APA trainers demonstrate simple yet powerful techniques including how to quickly identify the best search terms, apply filters to narrow the range of results, and pinpoint empirical studies.

Highlights include using APA Thesaurus terms and other database fields to target your search, Boolean operators to accurately include or exclude concepts, and cited references to find related research.

APA PsycInfo: Advanced Search

This 60-minute session highlights some of APA PsycInfo’s advanced functionality, designed to increase your efficiency by retrieving better search results faster.

We provide an overview of the three main vocabularies [keywords, Thesaurus subjects, and Classifications] you can use to search APA PsycInfo, and show easy effective ways to quickly expand or narrow your list of search results.

You’ll also learn about syntax for proximity search and truncation; using citations to explore related research; applying search limits and results filters; using the Author Affiliation field to discover where research of interest is happening; searching the Test and Measures field for information about tests used in the scholarly literature; and using the Grant/Sponsorship field to discover potential funding sources.

Semester Special: APA PsycTherapy

Every spring and every fall, APA trainers offer a deeper dive into one area of our tools and databases. These hour-long trainings are designed for researchers and librarians who use APA PsycInfo frequently.

The topic for Fall 2023 is APA PsycTherapy.

A live platform demo will focus on: the extensive content update of June 2023; The APA PsycTherapy Teaching Guide & corresponding APA PsycTherapy playlists; and individual account tools.

Can’t attend a scheduled session?

Now Available: 500+ new hours of streaming video in APA PsycTherapy

We are excited to announce that the amount of content in the APA PsycTherapy® database more than doubled on May 30!

Clinical psychology faculty, researchers, and graduate students can now access 910+ videos presenting more than 1,030 unscripted full therapy sessions conducted by expert practitioners with individuals, couples, and families.

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Conducted Online, featuring Larissa N. Niec, PhD. From the APA Video Series - APA Teletherapy Video Series, now available in APA PsycTherapy.
APA Teletherapy Video Series titles now available in APA PsycTherapy

This latest update includes the full catalog of the APA Psychotherapy Video Series in addition to newly published single video titles, such as:

  • Positive Psychotherapy Delivered Online (Tayyab Rashid)
  • Working With Couples in the Correctional System (Corrine Datchi)
  • Multicultural Feminist Therapy With Adolescent Girls of Color (Thema Bryant-Davis)
  • Working With Clients Experiencing Climate Distress (Leslie Davenport and Wendy Greenspun)

Setting standards for nearly 30 years, the APA Psychotherapy Video Series is well known in the field of psychology and includes many best-selling titles. Many videos feature the clinician who created the psychotherapy approach along with framing content, including an interview about their approach and their professional analysis of the therapy demonstration. This provides unique and valuable instructional context to benefit students as part of both coursework and independent study. All future APA Psychotherapy Video Series releases will be included in APA PsycTherapy, totaling 20-40 hours of new streaming video content each year.

APA PsycTherapy includes content related to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), a central principle guiding APA’s organizational mission. To help foster cultural competency and sensitivity, more than 50 titles feature topics related to EDI or feature therapists of color. Examples include:

  • Working With Clients With Physical Disabilities (Linda Mona)
  • Affirmative Counseling With Transgender and Gender Diverse Clients (Lore Dickey)
  • Cultural Humility in Therapy (Cirleen DeBlaere and Jesse Owen)
  • The Dynamics of Power and Privilege in Psychotherapy (Malin Fors)
  • Reflections on Race and Ethnicity in the Therapeutic Setting (Rita Chi-Ying Chung, Joseph M. Cervantes, Fred Bemak, and Thema Bryant-Davis)
  • Ethnocultural Psychotherapy (Lillian Comas-Diaz)
  • Working With Issues of Social Class in Psychotherapy (William M. Liu)

This powerful teaching resource provides authentic, engaging examples of therapeutic approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based interventions, and trauma-focused therapy. Through firsthand observation, students learn how to translate theoretical concepts into practice and different ways of handling critical incidents that can arise during treatment.

APA PsycTherapy also includes the APA PsycTherapy Teaching Guide to assist faculty with curricula development and training the next generation of expert practitioners. It features exercises for using APA PsycTherapy with students, in clinical supervision settings, in psychotherapy researcher training, and more.

Related Resources

APA PsycInfo Research Services: Your AI-Powered Research Assistant

APA PsycInfo research services are fully responsive on any device.

Think of APA PsycInfo research services as your personal psychology research assistant.

Your institution’s subscription to APA PsycInfo provides courtesy access to a suite of complimentary, premium features to aid the search process. Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning, these services support students, researchers, and faculty as they monitor the latest research trends, explore analytics, and personalize content discovery—all within the most trusted index of psychological science in the world.

Read on for an overview of the main features within APA PsycInfo research services, and tips on using its many discovery tools.

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