Psychology, Self-Help and Counselling: 

Think carefully; could a psychology course be the right move for you? A fascinating area to study, psychology can also lead to a number of great careers…

To study psychology is to study the mind, human behaviour and the way in which it controls our emotional, physical and mental wellbeing. There are many different branches of psychology aimed specifically at tackling a particular set of conditions or ailments.

For example, clinical psychology deals with the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders; cognitive psychology is the study of human thought processes like attention, memory, problem-solving and perception; developmental psychology looks at how we grow, develop and act the way we do and forensic psychology is an applied field focused on using research and principles in the legal and criminal justice system.

With such a complex subject, a general overview will always help understanding and there are many basic courses that can help you to achieve this. You will cover areas such as theoretical perspectives of psychology, history and research methods.

Not only is it a fascinating subject, it can also prepare you for a wide range of career options. Some will be more obvious: if you’re interested in counselling and want to help people cope with the difficult events in their lives like divorce, bereavement of relationships, then an introductory course might be a good place to start. This could lead to diploma or an undergraduate course. But less obvious careers that all contain elements of psychology are market research, social work, teaching, nursing, advertising, personnel management and media.

Maybe your interest is more personal and you want to tackle a problem such as a phobia, or give yourself more confidence when speaking in public or doing presentations, or learn meditative skills to help you de-stress. Whatever your reasons for studying psychology, there will be a course that suits you and helps to you think in a different way.