I was half way through my Engineering degree when I realised that I should have been doing something else. I probably felt it as an epiphany, but looking back I can definitely say it was just another case of the elephant in the room. I had always known I should be doing something else and that something else was Psychology, but I had chosen to ignore it until it was no longer possible… Well, no longer possible is a clear overstatement, because I not only ended up finishing my Engineering degree, but I’ve managed to work several years as an Engineer.

I can imagine Freud would have blamed my super-ego: father figures and cultural regulations all conspiring to smoother my childish Id and saving me from the pleasure principle! But what I know with certainty is that, back then, I just made good use of the Ego: there is no future in Psychology, I said to myself; I’m actually doing well with my engineering degree, so why quit now?, I added; I can always do Psychology later on, as a hobby, I clarified… Brilliant idea – and with this I managed to put the elephant out-of-sight-out-of-mind for a few more years.

Let me warn you that this species of elephant feeds on your unconscious! If you leave it alone for too long it will become so big that nothing else will fit in the room and you will be forced to act… and that’s what happened.  In January 2011, I took a deep breath and started my deep dive into Psychology by part-time enrolling in a BSc. All went very well and I successfully re-emerged, trident in hand, in July 2015… However, I had barely been able to catch my breath when, my friend, the elephant, began again growing.

So, while I poise and reflect on my next move, I’m starting this blog. It’s basically a way to capture some of the many interesting things I hear and read about psychology, and very often do not go far beyond my working memory…  And, since I wrote quite a lot of essays and research papers for my BSc, it is also an opportunity to make them available to a wider – ah!ah! – audience. I know, of course, that at the end of the day, I’m fooling myself and that I’m condemned to see my elephant grow.

As a final word, let me explain why I chose the name psyluv. According to the UrbanDictionary.com, Luv is “a casual way of saying you really like someone without freaking them out by saying I love you.” And this is what I feel about psychology: I really, really like it, but, for the moment, I prefer to think of it as a fun, fun hobby. I’m not sure I’d freak out psychology by saying I love you, but I would sure freak out myself if I started having less fun by taking it too serious…