Virtuous English AcademyPsychology & Mind — B2 English Vocabulary
This B2 vocabulary list gathers 50 upper-intermediate English words about psychology & mind — behaviour, cognition and the psyche. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using psychology & mind words in English
Psychological vocabulary contains a three-way trap that catches even confident writers: conscious, conscience and consciousness are three different words that look almost identical. This page separates them, distinguishes clinical depression and anxiety from their everyday senses, and finishes the empathy and sympathy pair that B1 began.
What to watch out for
Conscious, conscience, consciousness
Conscious is an adjective meaning awake or aware: He was conscious throughout. Consciousness is the noun for that state: She lost consciousness. Conscience is something else entirely — your inner sense of right and wrong: a guilty conscience. They are also stressed differently, with conscience taking the stress on the first syllable and having only two syllables.
Empathy shares the feeling; sympathy observes it
Sympathy is feeling sorry for somebody from outside their experience. Empathy is understanding their feeling as if from inside it. The prepositions differ too: sympathy for a person, but empathy with them. In psychology and in workplace English empathy is the more valued quality, which is why it appears in almost every job description.
Clinical terms have everyday twins
Depression in clinical use is a diagnosable illness, not a low mood; anxiety is a persistent disorder, not ordinary nervousness. Trauma likewise means a lasting psychological injury rather than an unpleasant afternoon. Using them loosely is understood but reads as imprecise. Note the fixed forms: anxious about something, a phobia of something, and self-esteem with a hyphen.
Words learners mix up
Psychology has lent more vocabulary to everyday English than any other science, and the borrowed words rarely kept their precision. These three clusters restore it: where a reaction comes from, what the clinical pairs actually pair, and how to describe a person.
Where did that reaction come from?
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| instinct | An inborn pattern of behaviour you never learnt. Countable, and takes for: an instinct for survival. | Protecting the young is pure instinct. |
| impulse | A sudden urge to act, arriving without deliberation. About timing, not about origin. | She bought it on impulse. |
| intuition | Knowing something without conscious reasoning — a judgement, not an urge. Usually uncountable. | His intuition about the candidate proved right. |
| conditioning | Behaviour learnt through repeated association. The opposite of instinct: entirely acquired. | The response is conditioning, not fear. |
| stimulus | The thing that triggers a response. Latin plural stimuli, pronounced STIM-yoo-lie. | The same stimulus produced a different response. |
The axis that matters is innate against learnt: instinct is born, conditioning is trained, and intuition sits in between — it feels immediate but is usually built on experience. Impulse says nothing about origin at all, only that no thinking intervened.
The clinical pairs that everyday English collapses
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| obsession | An intrusive thought that will not go away. This is the mental half of the pair. | The obsession with contamination was constant. |
| compulsion | The act the person feels driven to perform to relieve it. The behavioural half. | The handwashing is a compulsion, not a preference. |
| denial | Refusing to accept a reality that is too painful. In clinical use a defence mechanism, not simple dishonesty. | He was in complete denial about the diagnosis. |
| paranoia | A persistent, unfounded belief that others intend you harm. A specific delusion, not general suspicion. | The paranoia intensified over several months. |
Obsession and compulsion are two halves of one condition, which is why the disorder is named for both. Everyday English uses either for a strong enthusiasm — I’m obsessed with that programme — and that is perfectly normal speech; it just is not what the clinical word means.
Four ways of describing how somebody is
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| mindset | A set of attitudes you hold that shapes how you approach things — and which can change. Popular in education and management. | Shifting to a problem-solving mindset. |
| mentality | A characteristic way of thinking, usually of a group, and usually criticised: a siege mentality. | The mentality in that department is defensive. |
| disposition | Your natural, settled temperament. More stable than a mindset and not chosen. | A cheerful disposition that survived everything. |
| psyche | The mind as a whole, including what is not conscious. Formal, and pronounced SY-kee, two syllables. | The event left a mark on the national psyche. |
Mindset is the only one you can be asked to change, which is exactly why it dominates workplace English. Note that mentality is almost always disapproving in British usage, so a positive mentality reads oddly where a positive mindset is idiomatic.
Collocations that sound natural
This vocabulary has moved into ordinary workplace and health writing, and it moved as fixed phrases. These are the ones you will meet in job descriptions, wellbeing policies and news features.
self-esteem
low self-esteemboost self-esteemfragile self-esteemdamage somebody’s self-esteem
Always hyphenated and uncountable. The adjective pairing is low or high — never small or big.
resilience
build resilienceemotional resilienceshow resiliencea lack of resilience
The verb is build or develop, which frames it as trainable — the whole reason the word is now everywhere.
bias
unconscious biasconfirmation biasa bias towardscorrect for bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to notice evidence that fits what you already believe. Plural biases, and the preposition is towards or against.
burnout
suffer burnouton the verge of burnoutburnout rateslead to burnout
One word as a noun, uncountable. The two-word verb is burn out: she burnt out after four years.
willpower
sheer willpowerlack the willpowerwillpower alonea failure of willpower
trauma
childhood traumaprocess traumadeep-seated traumaa traumatic event
The adjective is traumatic, and the verb traumatise. Note that trauma also has a purely physical medical sense — trauma surgery — with no psychological content at all.
Formal, neutral or informal?
The single most useful thing here is knowing which professional does what, because English uses four titles that learners routinely swap. After that, watch the words that mean one thing in a clinic and another in conversation.
- psychiatristMedical doctorA qualified doctor who diagnoses mental illness and can prescribe medication. A psychologist studies behaviour and the mind and generally cannot prescribe. The distinction is real and matters in any factual writing.
- therapist / counsellingBroader termsA therapist delivers psychological treatment and the title is not uniformly protected. Counselling is generally shorter-term support for a specific difficulty. British English doubles the l: counselling, counsellor.
- egoFreudian vs everydayIn Freud, the part of the mind mediating between drives and reality — neutral and technical. In ordinary English it means self-importance: a huge ego, a bruised ego. The everyday sense is far more common and is not a mistake.
- in denialClinical → conversationalThe phrase has fully entered everyday speech — he is in denial about it — where it means refusing to face something obvious. Fine in speech and journalism; in clinical writing it names a specific defence mechanism.
- paranoidLoose in speechCasually used for ordinary suspicion: I’m being paranoid, but…. Standard conversational English, though it borrows a serious clinical term, so avoid it in writing about actual illness.
- amnesiaTechnicalLoss of memory from injury or illness. The film version — waking with no idea who you are — is rare in reality. Figurative use exists and is critical: collective amnesia about the decision.
- mindful / meditationWellness registerMindful has two lives: the ordinary mindful of the risks, meaning aware, and the wellbeing sense of deliberate present-moment attention. Only the second connects to meditation.
- subjective / objectiveAcademicA useful pair to keep straight: subjective depends on the individual’s own perception, objective does not. Neither means biased or fair — those are judgements, and these are descriptions of the standpoint.
Sentences to try
Four frames from psychological writing. Check that the near-identical words are doing the right job.
- The patient regained consciousness after several hours.
- His conscience would not let him accept the money.
- Good managers show empathy with their teams.
- She is building the resilience to cope with the pressure.
Questions about psychology & mind vocabulary
What is the difference between conscious, conscience and consciousness?
Conscious is an adjective meaning awake, or aware of something: I was conscious of a noise behind me. Consciousness is the noun naming that state of awareness: He never lost consciousness. Conscience is unrelated in meaning — it is your internal sense of right and wrong: She acted against her conscience. The spellings are close and so are the sounds, but conscience has only two syllables and stresses the first. A useful memory hook is that conscience contains science and concerns knowing what is right.
What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?
Sympathy is feeling compassion for somebody from the outside — you are sorry that they are suffering. Empathy is understanding what they feel by imagining yourself in their position, sharing the emotion rather than observing it. The prepositions differ accordingly: you feel sympathy for someone and empathy with them. Both are more precise than the everyday use of sympathetic, which in English never means simply likeable — that is a false friend from several other European languages.
Can I use "depression" and "anxiety" loosely in English?
You will be understood, but in academic, clinical or professional writing both words carry technical meanings. Depression is a diagnosable mood disorder rather than ordinary sadness, and anxiety is a persistent condition rather than nervousness before an exam. For everyday feelings, English has plenty of alternatives: low, down, fed up, nervous, on edge, worried. Using the clinical term for a passing mood is one of the ways writing loses precision at B2 and above.