Ideas & Influences
No single school of psychology contains a person. VIDALA draws from a wider intellectual landscape while distinguishing historical influence, useful models, empirical evidence and emerging theory.
The inner life and its histories.
- Psychodynamic, depth and relational thinking — Freud, Jung, Winnicott, Bion, Kohut, Kernberg, Nancy McWilliams, Stephen Mitchell
- Attachment and development — Bowlby, Ainsworth, Fonagy
- Humanistic and existential traditions — Rogers, Maslow, Frankl, Rollo May, Yalom
- Cognitive, behavioral and contextual traditions — Beck, Ellis, Linehan, Hayes
Beyond recovery.
- Positive psychology and well-being — Seligman, Peterson, Fredrickson, Diener, Ryff
- Motivation and self-determination — Ryan & Deci
- Flow and optimal experience — Csikszentmihalyi, Susan Jackson
- Expertise and deliberate practice — K. Anders Ericsson
- Self-efficacy and agency — Albert Bandura
- Creativity and motivation — Teresa Amabile
- Goals and self-regulation — Gabriele Oettingen
- Performance under pressure — Sian Beilock
- Sport and high-performance psychology — Martens, Weinberg & Gould, Hanin, Wulf, Robazza, Orlick
Across levels of explanation.
- Behavioral neuroscience and stress physiology
- Psychoneuroendocrinology
- Systems and complexity — Gregory Bateson
- Embodied and enactive cognition — Varela, Maturana
- Mind and brain — Damasio, Friston, Clark
At the edges of ordinary experience.
- William James
- Stanislav Grof — historically influential psychedelic theory
- Roland Griffiths — modern empirical psychedelic research
- Robin Carhart-Harris — contemporary psychedelic neuroscience and theory
Influence does not mean endorsement. Claims are considered according to the quality of evidence supporting them, their clinical usefulness and their limits.
The older questions remain.
- Epictetus
- Kierkegaard
- Nietzsche
- William James
The point is not to assemble a grand theory. It is to preserve enough intellectual range to ask the right question at the right level.