Psychology: definitions, branches, history and how to become one (2023)

Psychology, according to the American Psychological Association, is the study of the mind and behavior. It is the study of the mind, how it works and how it affects behavior.

TheAPA supplementsthat it "encompasses all aspects of human experience, from the functions of the brain to the actions of nations, from child development to the care of the elderly".

Psychologists and psychiatrists work together to help people withMental healthconditions, but they are not entirely the same.

A psychologist treats a patient through psychotherapy and helps relieve symptoms through behavior changes. The role of the psychiatrist, being a doctor, is more focused on prescribing medication and other interventions to treat mental illness.

What is psychology?

A psychologist's work can range from counseling people with anxiety to advising companies on how to build better teams.

The mind is very complex, and related disorders can be difficult to treat.

Thought processes, emotions, memories, dreams, perceptions, etc. cannot be seen physically, like a rash or a heart defect.

While physical signs of some mental health problems can be observed, such as B. the plaques that develop with itAlzheimer's disease, many theories of psychology are based on the observation of human behavior.

A practicing psychologistwill meetPatients conduct investigations to find out what their concerns are and what is causing difficulties, and recommend or offer treatment, such as counseling and psychotherapy.

Psychologists can also have other roles. You can conduct studies to advise health authorities and others on social and other policies, assess children with learning disabilities at school, conduct workshops to prevent bullying, work with corporate recruiting teams, and more.

branches of psychology

There are different types of psychology that serve different purposes. There's no fixed way to classify them, but here are some common types.

Clinical Psychology

Clinical psychology integrates science, theory, and practice to understand, predict, and mitigate problems of adjustment, disability, and discomfort. It encourages adjustment, adaptation and personal development.

A clinical psychologist focuses on the intellectual, emotional, biological, psychological, social, and behavioral aspects of human performance throughout a person's life, across different cultures and socioeconomic levels.

Clinical psychology can help us understand, prevent, and mitigate psychologically-related distress or dysfunction and promote an individual's well-being and personal development.

Psychological assessment and psychotherapy are central to the practice of clinical psychology, but clinical psychologists are often involved in research, training, forensic testimony, and other areas as well.

cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology studies internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, learning, and language. It examines how people think, perceive, communicate, remember and learn. It is closely related toneuroscience, philosophy and linguistics.

Cognitive psychologists study how people take in, process, and store information.

Practical uses include improving memory, increasing the accuracy of decision-making, or setting up educational programs to encourage learning.

developmental psychology

This is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that a person experiences throughout life, often referred to as human development.

It focuses not only on infants and young children, but also on teenagers, adults and the elderly.

Factors include motor skills, problem solving, moral understanding, language acquisition, emotions, personality, self-concept, and identity formation.

It also looks at innate mental structures as opposed to learning through experience, or how a person's characteristics interact with environmental factors and how this affects development.

Developmental psychology overlaps with fields such as linguistics.

Evolutionspsychologie

Evolutionary psychology studies how human behavior, such as language, has been influenced by psychological adaptations during evolution.

An evolutionary psychologist believes that many human psychological traits are adaptive in that they have allowed us to survive for thousands of years.

Forensic Psychology

Forensic psychology involves the application of psychology to criminal investigations and the law.

A forensic psychologist practices psychology as a science within the criminal justice system and the civil courts.

It involves assessing the psychological factors that might affect a case or behavior and presenting the findings in court.

health psychology

Health psychology is also called behavioral medicine or medical psychology.

It observes how behavior, biology and social context affect disease and health.

A doctor often looks first at the biological causes of a disease, but a health psychologist focuses on the whole person and what affects their state of health. This may include their socioeconomic status, education and background, and behaviors that may impact the disease, such as B. Compliance with instructions and medication.

Health psychologists typically work alongside other healthcare professionals in clinical settings.

Neuropsychology

Neuropsychology studies the structure and function of the brain in relation to behaviors and psychological processes. A neuropsychology may be involved when a condition involves lesions in the brain and assessments that involve recording electrical activity in the brain.

A neuropsychological evaluation is used to determine whether a person is likely to experience behavioral problems after a suspected or diagnosed brain injury, such as:stroke.

The results may allow a doctor to provide treatment that can help individuals achieve potential improvements in cognitive damage that has occurred.

industrial psychology

Occupational or organizational psychologists deal with the assessment and submission of recommendations on the performance of people in work and training.

They help organizations find more effective ways of working and understand how people and groups behave at work.

This information can help improve effectiveness, efficiency, job satisfaction, and employee retention.

social psychology

Social psychology uses scientific methods to understand how social influences affect human behavior. It attempts to explain how feelings, behavior, and thoughts are affected by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other people.

A social psychologist studies group behavior, social cognition, nonverbal behavior, conformity, aggression, prejudice, and leadership. Social perception and social interaction are considered keys to understanding social behavior.

Othersbranches belongMilitary, consumer, educational, cross-cultural and environmental psychology. The number of branches continues to grow.

Story

In a philosophical context, psychology was known in ancient Greece, Egypt, India, Persia and China about a thousand years ago.

387 v. Chr.,suggested Platothat the brain is where mental processes take place, and in 335 B.C. Aristotle suggested it was the heart.

Avicenna, the famous Muslim physician, born in 980 AD,examined and treated Epilepsy, nightmares and bad memory. Said to have been the first hospitals to treat psychiatric disordersfounded by Islamic doctorsin the Middle Ages.

In 1774, Franz Mesmer suggested that hypnosis, or "mesmerism," might help cure some types of mental illness.

In 1793, Philippe Pinel released the first patients with mental health problems, a move that signaled a move towards more humane treatment.

In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt, Germany, established psychology as a distinct experimental field of study. He set up the first laboratory that exclusively conducted psychological research at the University of Leipzig. Today, Wundt is considered the father of psychology.

In 1890, the American philosopher William James published a book entitled Principles of Psychology. It has been discussed by psychologists worldwide for many decades. That same year, New York State passed the State Care Act, requiring people with mental health problems to leave poorhouses and go to the hospital for treatment.

In 1890 the American Psychological Association (APA) was founded under the direction of G. Stanley Hall.

Hermann Abbingaus, who lived from 1850 to 1909 and worked at the University of Berlin, was the first psychologist to deal extensively with memory.

Ivan Pavlov, who lived from 1849 to 1936, conducted the famous experiment showing that dogs salivated when expecting food and introduced the concept of "conditioning".

The Austrian Sigmund Freud, who lived from 1856 to 1939, introduced the field of psychoanalysis, a form of psychotherapy. He used interpretive methods, introspection, and clinical observation to understand the mind.

He focused on resolving unconscious conflict, psychological stress and psychopathology. Freud argued that the unconscious mind is responsible for most of people's thoughts and behaviors, as well as mental health problems.

E. B. Titchener, an American, was a strong believer in structuralism, which focuses on the question, "What is consciousness?"

William James and John Dewey were strong believers in functionalism, which addressed the question "What is consciousness for?"

The debate between functionalists and structuralists led to a rapidly growing interest in psychology in the United States and elsewhere, and the establishment of the first US psychology laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.

behaviorism

In 1913, an American psychologist, John B. Watson, started a new movement that changed the focus of psychology.

Behavior, he argued, is not the result of internal mental processes but the result of our response to the environment.

Behaviorism focused on how people learn new behaviors from the environment.

humanism

Humanists considered behaviorism and psychoanalytic theory too dehumanizing.

Rather than being victims of the environment or the unconscious, they proposed that humans are inherently good and that our own mental processes play an active role in our behavior.

The humanist movement places great emphasis on the emotions, free will, and a subjective view of experience.

cognitive theory

Introduced in the 1970s, it is considered to be the youngest school of thought in psychology.

Cognitive theorists believe that we take in information from our environment through our senses and then mentally process the data by organizing, manipulating, remembering, and relating it to information already stored.

Cognitive theory is applied to language, memory, learning, perceptual systems, mental disorders, and dreams.

Today

Psychologists today study all of these approaches and choose from each approach what seems best for a given situation.

How do I become a psychologist?

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), you can become a psychologist in the United Statespermitted to practicewith a doctorate in psychology from an accredited university. In addition, each state has requirements for licensing.

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