The subject I’m most interested in is psychology. However psychology is too vast a field to just say I’m interested in just psychology. So let’s start with its definition. Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes in both human and animals. So of course what I’m most interested in is human behavior and that age old question – what makes people ‘tick’? There’s a certain stereotype regarding psychology in which people believe that mind control or mind reading is involved and that scientists conduct mental experiments on unwilling, helpless patients. This could not be further from the truth.
For many others and me included, psychology is ultimately a way to help people with difficult internal problems that have nothing to do with the physical body but that which lies in the mind. Observing human behavior has always come very naturally to me. But in order to help people every piece of information is important. Information like a person’s perception, emotions, motivations, personality and relationships are just some of the many examples that are needed to truly understand a person and so help counsel them in the right direction. People all throughout my life have always come to me for advice and counsel. Having to provide that is a huge responsibility as they were people I cared about so understanding every single bit of information was crucial to getting them into the right direction.
Psychology as a science hasn’t been around that long as compared to the other sciences, around 125 years and in that time it has become a very important subject in relation to mankind such as in industrial and organizational settings, human development and aging, sports, health, the media, law and forensics. In the field of psychology there are 5 main categories that interest me and that I can relate to. They are behaviorism, humanism, clinical, social and personality.
Social psychology revolves around the study of how humans think about each other and how they have an influence on a person’s behavior beliefs, attitudes, and stereotypes about other people. Personality psychology is well basically the study of the human personality and the factors that affect personality like behavior, emotion and thought. Clinical psychology is a bit more complicated than the previous two. Although the common goal of promoting well-being and personal development is clear, the route to understanding, relieving and preventing psychological based problems comes with psychological assessment and psychotherapy. Humanistic psychology has a very fresh outlook when it comes to understanding a person’s distress. Instead of breaking down a person’s life in to different categories and trying to see how each category has a link to the problem, humanism focuses on the whole person and uniquely human issues such as free will, personal growth, death, aloneness, freedom and meaning. The theory of behaviorism is that people might be conditioned to behave in a certain way as a result of their environment. Certain stimuli in the environment and what reaction follows from that change is a very interesting study.
Psychology in its very basic form studies the human mind and to help solve problems that arise within the mind. Everything mentioned above and more is needed to help figure out the cause and the solution to their current predicament and help them lead better lives. And that’s really what it’s all about, helping people.
Subject matter taken from Wikipedia.
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