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Psychology Frequently Asked Questions

What is applied Psychology?

Applied Psychology is the general term that refers to the use of psychological principals in direct application to a particular vocation. Applied Psychology would pertain to virtually every type of job that an academic career in psychology would prepare you for. In this respect psychology is typically applied to consumer behavior, education, health care, environmental issues, law, and workplace management.

What are the general professional roles of a psychologist?

In their various roles, all psychologists work to understand the most complex and personal part of the Psychology Questions

human experience: Thought, emotion, mental process, and the influence these have on behavior.

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Some fields of psychology are concerned with research, evaluation, and psychological profiling; while most place their focus on the improvement of the individual’s sense of well-being and quality of life by evaluating and resolving the effects of psychological trauma through the use of a number of established methods.

What kind of relationships do psychologists maintain with their clients?

Psychologists are bound by the ethical obligation to maintain only professional relationships with their clients. Any confusion about the nature of the relationship in the client’s eyes can severely compromise the effectiveness of therapy, and can even cause new psychological issues.

Given that clients share the most intimate personal details with their therapist, it is not uncommon for them to develop a deep affinity for their therapist that they interpret as love. This is what is called transference, or the displacement of parental love to a paternal or maternal figure. Psychologists must have strong personalities and be assertive enough to deflect their client’s attempts at establishing a personal relationship.

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What is the American Psychological Association (APA)?

The APA is the largest psychology-specific scientific and professional organization in the U.S. The organization seeks to advance the science of psychology as a means by which to promote health, education, and human welfare. This organization exists as the most comprehensive professional resource in psychology. Visit: www.apa.org

What is the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?

The distinction between psychology and psychiatry is simple: Psychiatrists are medical doctors (MD) who are able to prescribe drugs to treat depression, anxiety, delusions, or other psychoses. Psychologists use therapy, not drugs, to treat these disorders.

Psychiatrists will usually first earn a degree in psychology, and then go on to earn a doctorate in medicine, so are often equipped to assist with their patients’ counseling as well as their medicinal needs. However, those who practice psychology exclusively have honed their skills such that they are highly effective in the use of their particular method of therapy.

How do psychologists work with psychiatrists and others medical professionals?

There is a certain symbiosis between psychologists and other medical professionals; each one relying on the other for their unique expertise. If it is determined that a person’s psychological ailment is severe enough to pose an immediate risk, they may be referred to a psychiatrist to be medicated.

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Psychologists are also called upon to intervene in cases where the homeless, or drug addicted are admitted to emergency rooms for physical problems, but are then determined to have psychological issues that need attention as well. Hospitals often have resident psychologists who work in this capacity.

What are the other schools of psychological thought?

Psychology is as vast and constantly evolving as the subject of its focus itself: mankind. In many cases there is either full homogony, or at least partial ideological overlap amongst the various theories, post-modern schools of thought, and schools of classic psychological thought. Still, a familiarity with all of them gives a broader understanding of the history and application of these various methods and approaches, as well as the many careers in psychology that use them.

Psychology has drawn intellectuals of the most inquisitive and ambitious nature. Some of these individuals have, through their extensive research and strong theorems, established other recognized theories and schools of psychological thought:

Activity Theory has observed that when people interact with their environment they produce tools as an externalized representation of their mental process.
Analytical Psychology is also known as Jungian Psychology named for its originator, Carl Jung. It focuses on subconscious motivations and looks to interpret them through dreams, myth, and folklore.
Associationism asserts that man’s innermost thoughts, fears, and desires will reveal themselves by association with events or images that may trigger subconscious responses.
Behavioral Genetics explores how behavioral traits can be passed genetically from generation to generation.
Cultural-historical Psychology recognizes the need to inherit and inhabit a cultural and physical environment that shows the contributions of past generations as a uniquely human characteristic.
Depth Psychology is a broad term used to describe any psychological approach that acknowledges the existence of a subconscious mind.
Descriptive Psychology was the first school of psychological thought to attempt to integrate universal principals of psychology as absolutes to establish a standard model. It works to resolve the relationship between the person and the motivation for their behavior.
Ecopsychology connects psychology with ecology, and seeks solutions to sustainability issues by addressing man’s relationship with the natural environment.
Environmental Psychology considers a broad definition of environmental influences on a person’s psychological health including: natural environment, physical and architectural surroundings, social environment, and learning environment.
Organismic Psychology postulates that the individual will naturally develop and grow in such a way that serves the unity, organization, and function of the societal organism it belongs to.
Phenomenological Psychology makes the individual’s subjective experience the source of psychological focus and evaluation.
Self Psychology acknowledges a psychological dichotomy in man and seeks an understanding of the narcissistic or grandiose self driven by personal ambition as well as ideology.
Transpersonal Psychology acknowledges human spirituality and is concerned with the study of the highest potential of humanity through the realization of spiritual states of transcendent consciousness.