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Beyond the One and Only? – Understanding Non-Monogamy Through Attachment, Attitudes, and Communication
“Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness” (attributed to Sigmund Freud). But are those cornerstones unchangeable? Love hardly fits into neat boxes. Ideas of peace, freedom, prosperity and humanity may be faltering as social orders seem more unstable than they have in a long time. Revisiting inter-personal connectedness evidently seems—from a psychological point of view—more topical than ever; thinking about relationships cannot be apolitical, not today. Consider this phenomenon: When you look around, it appears that the idea of one other person being the perfect match is engraved in the design of our world: Wedding invitations call for “plus ones”, hotel bookings generally start at 1-2 adults per…
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The Story We Write Together: About Identity Development and Romantic Dynamics
Since the beginning of philosophy humans asked themselves questions about their identity and relation to others. Although the discussion has history, comprehensive research examining the relationship between identity and relationship in depth is lacking – especially studies on different aspects of identity such as narration. The aim of this text is to point out overlaps between the fields and showcase the concepts of commitment, continuity, and intimacy. How does identity and relationships develop alongside each other? Why is it important to look at both? Commitment Looking at the two main drives both of them have a similarity. Every creation and every destruction involves a definite part. As soon as something…
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From Relational Insecurity to Emotional Vulnerability: Attachment and Adult Psychopathology
Have you ever wondered why some people seem grounded and emotionally resilient, while others struggle with intense fears of abandonment, self-doubt, or emotional overwhelm? One explanation lies in the ways we learn, early in life, to relate to others. This text explores how attachment patterns formed in childhood can shape our emotional world as adults, sometimes increasing vulnerability to conditions such as addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and depression. The goal is to offer a clear and accessible overview of these connections, without turning the discussion into a clinical manual. Every person is born with the need to feel close to others, a drive rooted in…
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The Echoes of Intergenerational Trauma: Navigating Intimate Relationships in Adulthood
Have you ever wondered why some people struggle to fully open up to close friends or partners, even when they really want to? Our ability to explore and build such trust and intimacy with others does not develop in isolation. Rather, it is shaped long before our first relationship, influenced by our own childhood experiences and early environments. Yet, for many second-generation immigrants, it is not only their own experiences that shape their emotional reality, but also those of their parents. Alongside cultural values and traditional practices, second-generation immigrants may also inherit the psychological effects of past trauma they never directly experienced. Often rooted in displacement and migration, traumatic experiences…
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Shaping Romantic Relationships: Exploring Interactions with Psychotherapy and Culture
How did you spend Valentine’s Day? Whether it was spent with a loved one, happily or unhappily single, or doing university work, romantic relationships are a common experience for the majority of people at some point in their life. Most people can vouch for the fact that they greatly impact wellbeing, life-satisfaction, and stress. However, relationships don’t just affect us; we shape our relationships through our own emotional regulation, conflict resolution, and attachment styles. Interestingly, many of the variables that shape romantic relationships are also skills and characteristics which are often worked on in psychotherapy, yet this link has been previously neglected. In recent years, psychotherapy has become a common…
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Siblings
Dear RP friends, We continue our blog articles on the Psychology of Close Relationships, the official Research Programme Theme for 2025/2026. In this review, we delve deeper into sibling relationships. In our announcement of the Research Program 2025/2026 (Hugs and Hypotheses: Psychology of Close Relationships), we noted that birth order can influence relationships, making it an important issue to discuss with clients on the couch and to examine scientifically. Alfred Adler was one of the first theorists to connect birth order with client understanding. Adler highlighted psychological birth order, focusing on children’s perceptions of their family roles over their ordinal positions. He stated, “It is not the child’s number in…
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2025/2026 Research Programme Supervisors Open Call
Attention psychology professors, PhDs and PostDoc Researchers! The EFPSA Research Programme is excited to announce the search for the Research Programme Supervisors of 2025/2026! Who: PhD Candidates, PhDs, Professors or PostDoc researchers in Psychology! What: To become a Supervisor at EFPSA’s Research Programme and work on a year-long research on the topic of your choice with student researchers from all over Europe! When & Where: 13th of July 2025 to 20th of July 2025 in Viseu, Portugal Number of supervisors: 6 experts, each guiding a group of 6-8 students Duration: 12 months (including fully-covered 7 days of Research Summer School with a travel reimbursement up to 100€) Application Deadline: 9th of May…
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Theories of love
Dear RP friends, We continue our blog articles on the Psychology of Close Relationships as an official Research Programme Theme for 2025/2026. “Relationships with others are central to the human experience: we are born into them, live through them, and their impact continues even after we die, influencing the lives of those who remain.” (Berscheid, 1999, as cited in Finkel et al., 2017). In this review, we delve deeper into the main theories of relationship science, focusing on romantic relationships as a topic of interest. In our theme announcement of Research Programme 2025/2026 (Hugs and Hypotheses: Psychology of Close Relationships), we mentioned that the three most influential theoretical frameworks are…
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Research Programme 2025/2026 Theme Announcement: Hugs and Hypotheses: Psychology of Close Relationships
Dear Psychology Students and Academic Workers, We are pleased to inform you of the theme for the 2025/2026 Research Programme – Hugs and Hypotheses: Psychology of Close Relationships. Research Programme 2025/2026 Theme: Hugs and Hypotheses: Psychology of Close Relationships The research of close relationships is a broad and rich field in psychology. The development of a unified science focused on understanding human relationships only began in the 1980s. Today, relationship science is an interdisciplinary field that uses various empirical methods to explore how interpersonal relationships begin, develop, are maintained, and eventually dissolve. It examines the structure and progression of relationships, the dynamics of how they function, and how individual characteristics…
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Call for Research Programme Student Researchers 2024-2025
The Call for EFPSA Research Programme 2024/25 Participants is now open! Are you a motivated European Bachelor or Master-level psychology student? And are you interested in conducting a one-year cross-cultural research project together with students from all over Europe? Do you want to gain experience in every aspect of research, from designing the study to data collection to communicating the results? If your answer is yes, apply to become a student researcher in the EFPSA Research Programme! Who: European Bachelor’s and Master-level students in psychology! What: Research Programme Deadline: 14th of June, 23:59 CEST What is EFPSA Research Programme? The EFPSA Research Programme (EFPSA RP) is an EFPSA Service, consisting…
