It is with a great deal of enthusiasm that the Department of Psychology at Simon Fraser University announces the fifth annual presentation of our public lecture series, which we call Psych in the City. Previous versions of Psych in the City proved to be highly informative and enjoyable events for the general public, and the new lectures that members of the Department will present in April, 2011 at SFU's Vancouver Campus promise to extend this previous success.

When many people think of the field of psychology, images may come to mind of clients lying on leather couches or of animals traversing mazes in search of food. Of course, these stereotypical images are both misleading and erroneously narrow. Applied clinical psychology is typically therapy-based, but does not usually involve leather couches, and the experimental study of learning and cognition includes much more than the conditioning of rats. Further, clinical psychology and cognitive psychology are just two facets of the entire field. Psychologists also study child development, social relationships and group dynamics, prejudice, violence and other criminal behaviour, statistics and research design, neuro-chemical processes, the evolution and history of our mental and behavioural capabilities, human factors engineering, and the list goes on. Psychology is a big field - a very big field. And we would like to offer you the opportunity to learn more about it.

The 2011 version of our Psych in the City public lectures will be held at SFU's Vancouver Campus, on the Wednesday evenings of April 13, 20, and 27, from 7 to 9 p.m. Each evening will spotlight one area of psychology and will consist of two talks. Each talk will be followed by a question-and-answer period during which members of the audience will be invited to ask questions.

We hope to see you there!

Don Read, Ph.D.
Department Chair and Host, Psych in the City
Department of Psychology
Simon Fraser University