The word Psychology comes from the ancient Greek word ‘psyche’ which means ‘mind’ or ‘soul’ Therefore Psychology means the study of mind and soul. psychology evolved out of both philosophy and biology. Contemporary psychologists’ attempt to make scientific observations further modified the meaning of psychology saying that mind and soul cannot be measured objectively whereas behavior can be. Hence, modern psychologists define ‘It’ as a science of human and animal behavior; it includes the application of this science to human problems.

Psychology is both an applied and academic field that studies the human mind and behavior. Research in psychology seeks to understand and explain thought, emotion, and behavior. Applications of psychology include mental health treatment, performance enhancement, self-help, and many other areas affecting health and daily life.
The field and study of psychology was truly born when Wilhelm wundt established the first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany in 1879. Wundt’s research utilized a school of thought known as structuralism, which involved describing the structures that compose the mind. Major schools of thoughts includes

Structuralism

functionalism

Psychoanalysis

Behaviorism

Humanism

Cognitivism

Different methods are employed to study psychology viz, Experimental method, systematic observation, clinical method. Each method needs an elaborated explanations to make the readers understand this subject. One can check in the link http://psychology.about.com to read the details of schools of thoughts, methods and different areas of psychology.
Psychologist differ not only in their behavioral interests but in the degree to which they are involved with the application of paychoogy to life’s problems—the art of psychology. The major subfields of psychology are clinical psychology, counseling psychology, school and education psychology, experimental and physiological psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology and community psychology.
Clinical psychologists come closest to many people’s idea of what a psychologist is. They are doctors who diagnose psychological disorders and treat them by means of psychotherapy. However one should not confused the term psychiatrist with a psychologist. A psychiatrist hold an M.D. degree whereas a psychologist holds a Ph.D. or M.A. degree. Clinical psychologist and psychiatrist should also be distinguished from the psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst is the person who uses the particular psychotherapeutic techniques which originated with Sigmund freud and his followers. Anyone who has had special training required to use these techniques can be a psychoanalyst.

Article Submitted by :- Thokchom Bibinaz

Tags: Education, Psychology, Science

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 11:50 am and is filed under Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.