Definitions, branches, history, and how to become one

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Yvette Brazier

What is psychology and what does it involve?

Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, PhD, PsyD — By Yvette Brazier on February 1, 2018
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior, according to the American Psychological
Association. It is the study of the mind, how it works, and how it affects behavior.

The APA adds that it “embraces all aspects of the human experience, from the functions of
the brain to the actions of nations, from child development to care for the aged.”

Psychologists and psychiatrists work together to help people with mental health conditions,
but they are not quite the same.

A psychologist treats a patient through psychotherapy, helping to relieve symptoms through

behavioral change. The role of the psychiatrist, who is a medical doctor, focuses more on
prescribing medication and other interventions to manage mental health conditions.

What is psychology?
The work of a psychologist can range from counseling individuals with anxiety to advising
companies on how to build better teams.

The mind is highly complex, and conditions that relate to it can be hard to treat.

Thought processes, emotions, memories, dreams, perceptions, and so on cannot be seen

physically, like a skin rash or heart defect.

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

A practicing psychologist will meet with patients, carry out assessments to find out what their
concerns are and what is causing any difficulties, and recommend or provide treatment, for
example, through counselling and psychotherapy.

Psychologists may have other roles, too. They may carry out studies to advise health
authorities and other bodies on social and other strategies, assess children who find it
difficult to learn in school, give workshops on how to prevent bullying, work with recruitment
teams in companies, and much more.

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Branches of psychology
There are different types of psychology that serve different purposes. There is no fixed way
of classifying them, but here are some common types.

Clinical psychology
Clinical psychology integrates science, theory, and practice in order to understand, predict
and relieve problems with adjustment, disability, and discomfort. It promotes adaption,
adjustment, and personal development.

A clinical psychologist concentrates on the intellectual, emotional, biological, psychological,

social, and behavioral aspects of human performance throughout a person’s life, across
varying cultures and socioeconomic levels.

Clinical psychology can help us to understand, prevent, and alleviate psychologically-caused

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 also involved in research, training, forensic
testimony, and other areas.

Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology investigates internal mental processes, such as problem solving,

memory, learning, and language. It looks at how people think, perceive, communicate,
remember, and learn. It is closely related to neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics.

Cognitive psychologists look at how people acquire, process, and store information.

Practical applications include how to improve memory, increase the accuracy of decision-
making, or how to set up educational programs to boost learning.

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

It focuses not only on infants and young children but also teenagers, adults, and older
people.

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

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It also looks at innate mental structures against learning through experience, or how a
person’s characteristics interact with environmental factors and how this impacts
development.

Developmental psychology overlaps with fields such as linguistics.

Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology looks at how human behavior, for example language, has been
affected by psychological adjustments during evolution.

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

Forensic psychology

Forensic psychology involves applying psychology to criminal investigation and the law.

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

It involves assessing the psychological factors that might influence 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 influence illness and health.

A physician often looks first at the biological causes of a disease, but a health psychologist
will focus on the whole person and what influences their health status. This may include their
socioeconomic status, education, and background, and behaviors that may have an impact
on the disease, such as compliance with instructions and medication.

Health psychologists usually work alongside other medical professionals in clinical settings.

Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology looks at the structure and function of the brain in relation to behaviors and
psychological processes. A neuropsychology may be involved if 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 following suspected or diagnosed brain injury, such as a
stroke.

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The results can enable a doctor to provide treatment that may help the individual achieve
possible improvements in cognitive damage that has occurred.

Occupational psychology

Occupational or organizational psychologists are involved in assessing and making

recommendations about the performance of people at work and in training.

They help companies to find more effective ways to function, and to 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 impact
human behavior. It seeks to explain how feelings, behavior, and thoughts are influenced by
the actual, imagined or implied presence of other people.

A social psychologist looks at group behavior, social perception, non-verbal behavior,

conformity, aggression, prejudice, and leadership. Social perception and social interaction
are seen as key to understanding social behavior.

Other branches include military, consumer, educational, cross-cultural, and environmental

psychology. The number of branches continues to grow.

History
In a philosophical context, psychology was around thousands of years ago in ancient
Greece, Egypt, India, Persia, and China.

In 387 BCE, Plato suggested that the brain is where mental processes take place, and in 335
BCE Aristotle suggested that it was the heart.

Avicenna, the famous Muslim doctor, born in 980 AD, studied and treated epilepsy,
nightmares, and poor memory. The first hospitals treating psychiatric conditions were said to
have been set up by Islamic doctors in medieval times.

In 1774, Franz Mesmer proposed that hypnosis, or “mesmerism,” might help cure some
types of mental illness.

In 1793, Philippe Pinel released the first patients with mental health problems from
confinement in a move that signalled a move toward more humane treatment.

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In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt, Germany, founded psychology as an independent experimental
field of study. He set up the first laboratory that carried out psychological research exclusively
at Leipzig University. Wundt is known today as the father of psychology.

In 1890, an American philosopher, William James, published a book entitled Principles of

Psychology. It was discussed by psychologists worldwide for many decades. In the same
year, New York State passed the State Care Act, in which people with mental health
problems were to leave poor houses and enter the hospital for treatment.

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

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

Ivan Pavlov, who lived from 1849 to 1936, carried out the famous experiment which showed
that dogs salivated when they expected food, introducing the concept of “conditioning.”

The Austrian Sigmund Freud, who lived from 1856 to 1939, introduced the field of
psychoanalysis, a type of psychotherapy. He used interpretive methods, introspection, and
clinical observations to gain understanding of the mind.

He focused on resolving unconscious conflict, mental distress, and psychopathology. Freud

argued that the unconscious was responsible for most of people’s thoughts and behavior,
and for mental health problems.

E. B Titchener, an American, strongly believed in structuralism, which focuses on the

question: “What is consciousness?”

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

The debate between the functionalists and structuralists led to a rapid growth in interest in
psychology in the United States and elsewhere, and the establishment of the first psychology
laboratory in the U.S., at Johns Hopkins University.

Behaviorism

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

Behavior, he argued, is not the result of internal mental processes, but the result of how we
respond to the environment.

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

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Humanism

Humanists viewed behaviorism and psychoanalytic theory as too dehumanizing.

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

The humanist movement puts high value on the emotions, free will, and a subjective view of
experience.

Cognitive theory

Introduced in the 1970s, this is seen as the most recent school of thought in psychology.

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

Cognitive theory is applied to language, memory, learning, perceptual systems, mental

disorders, and dreams.

Today

Nowadays, psychologists study all these approaches and choose what appears to be best
from each approach for a particular situation.

How do I become a psychologist?

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), in the U.S., a pschologist can
become licensed to practice with a doctoral degree in the field of psychology from an
accredited university. In addition, each state has requirements for licensure.

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Last medically reviewed on February 1, 2018

Mental Health
Psychology / Psychiatry

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and statistics — within each article and also list them in the resources section at the bottom
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by reading our editorial policy.
About APA. (n.d.)
http://www.apa.org/support/about-apa.aspx?item=7
Baker, D. B (editor). (2011). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Psychology: Global
Perspectives. Published by Oxford University Press, USA
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Cherry, K. (2017, May 18). Main branches of psychology. Explore Psychology
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https://allpsych.com/timeline/
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Licensure and practice. (n.d.)
http://www.apa.org/support/licensure.aspx
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Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, PhD, PsyD — By Yvette Brazier on February 1, 2018

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