hey there. it was nice to hear about your charity work! i've been thinking about volounteering for something like that myself. i need to suss that out sometime...

> I have found though that they really appreciate it when you just hear their stories and feel related. Also known as empathy.

:-)
oh yes indeedie. i don't know anyone who doesn't appreciate a little empathy
:-)

> I haven't studied any psychology course or anything at all. But I want to "cheat" in order to understand them better. So I would like you to help me to "cheat".

lol

> I haven't got the time to do a psychology course.

i'm not sure how much a psychology course would help you with what you are looking for anyways. people often find psychology courses are a lot different from what they think they are going to be. people often ask: 'how on earth is this psychology?' learning about such things as chickens pecking keys and the neurophysiology of colour vision...

sounds like you are looking for 'big picture' kind of stuff.

> "A weak father and strong mother, with an unresolved Oedipus complex will lead to a weak, and then homosexual, son, because the mother has too strong of an image, compared to the weak state of the father. Psychologists argue that this same arrangement would also possibly lead to a stronger son, striving for compensation of his father's weakness."

lol. psychoanalytic / psychodynamic theory is indeed 'big picture' kind of stuff. theories of human nature in general. what motivates us, what people are looking for, what people find meaningful etc etc.

i'll recommend some names and google searches should be able to help you out further. i'll also say that all of the 'big picture' theories are fairly controversial. i enjoy reading them mostly as a hobby. take what you can from them is my motto.

http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/humanistic.html
there are some nice summaries available from the above link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/rogers.html

my current favourite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Kohut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis

that should be enough to keep you busy for a while ;-)

if you find one particular theorist or school of thought that you seem to click with you should be able to find more via google