The 12 branches (or fields) of Psychology

It is quite common to think that psychologists and psychologists are dedicated to solving certain types of personal problems of "patients". Behavioral problems, such as Alcohol addiction; emotional, like the pain caused by the death of a loved one, or related to pathologies also treated from psychiatry.

Definitely, psychology is, for a good part of the population, the practice of conducting psychotherapy, if not directly something to do with couches, hypnosis, and psychoanalysis in general.

The different specialties (branches) of psychology

However, if we stop to examine more closely what psychology is and what it has been throughout history, we we will realize that the scopes and fields in which it can be applied are much broader than the iconic picture of Sigmund Freud providing psychotherapy services. In fact, psychology can have as many facets as there are activities carried out by human beings.

That is what means that there is not just one psychology, but many branches of psychology that are oriented to different fields of application and different objectives. Psychology consisting of conducting psychotherapy with patients is, therefore, only one of the many specialties that exist within the science of behavior.

So, if you want to know what the different branches of psychology are and their job opportunities, it will be good for you to read what comes next.

1. Organizational and work psychology

The organizational and work psychology (the latter also known as industrial psychology) has to do with research and intervention on workers, with the aim of finding strategies to do that their level of performance is optimal taking into account the needs of each one of them and those of the organization in their globality. It is, therefore, the application of psychology to the world of work.

People who do organizational psychology often work within the Human Resources departments of companies. Business, or they can offer their services from agencies specialized in the selection of personnel, the provision of formative courses, the creation of more effective work dynamics, etc.

As the activities carried out within an organization are very varied, this branch of psychology has, in turn, many aspects.

One of its facets, for example, It is oriented to what makes each of the workers, individually, perform well in their job, either by intervening on the tools that each person has, studying their strengths and weaknesses, conducting ergonomics studies to check whether or not they work properly comfortable, etc. This facet of specialization is often called work psychology, or industrial psychology, since rather it has to do with the performance of each of the workers and their work environment righ now.

The other facet of this specialty of psychology, on the other hand, It is oriented to the work dynamics and the relationships between the people that make up the organization, and therefore has to do with the work environment, leadership studies, the resolution of conflicts of interest, the creation of effective communication flows, etc. This is organizational psychology.

The psychology of work and organizations is, in addition, the branch of psychology that usually has a greater job opportunity, and therefore it is usually a highly valued professional option. Inside of her, recruitment tends to create the most jobs.

2. Marketing and consumer psychology

The marketing psychology is born from the psychology of organizations, in the sense that it is aimed at meeting the needs of the productive gear of companies. In this case, these needs consist in providing an outlet for the products or services that are offered, making the potential demand for these be directed to the company's offer.

In short, of all the branches of psychology this specialization focuses on research aimed at creating attractive products and services for the customer. Therefore, it takes part in the creation of the marketing plan, the publicity and the design of the product.

Marketing and consumer psychology specializes in making what organizations offer is as attractive as possible to the type of customer to whom you want to sell the product or service, and also establishes which communication strategies are most useful to reach this. It is a discipline very overlapping with what the media and news agencies have traditionally been doing. advertising, and that is why these types of psychologists work together with the professionals of those scopes.

Among the most valuable assets in marketing and consumer psychology is the neuromarketing, that applies techniques of neurosciences to see how potential clients or consumers respond to advertising pieces, designs of packaging (the product packaging), etc. Advertising psychologists can also play an important role in these design processes depending on how they interpret the reading of brain activation patterns, the monitoring of the movement of the gaze before a poster of advertising, etc.

This is one of the most important specialties of psychology in a context in which consumers are increasingly immune and skeptical of advertising.

3. Clinical and health psychology

This is one of the most well-known branches of psychology, if not the most, and consists of research and intervention focused on psychological problems more or less severe that affect people's quality of life. If the psychological disturbances are related to mental disorders, clinical psychologists will work together with other health professionals in the diagnosis, prognosis, intervention and control of disorders psychological.

People who belong to this specialty of psychology offer a service called psychotherapy and whose form, approach and procedures can vary greatly, depending on the psychological orientation that one has and the tools that are available. Due, not all health psychologists work in the same way or have the same training, although they may be included within the category of mental health professionals.

4. Sexology

The specialization of sexology within the field of psychology has to do withn the application of psychology to the resolution of sexuality problems. It is a branch of psychology derived from clinical and health psychology but which is oriented to treatments on the sexual life of patients.

Although the psychology of the field of sexology is especially useful to treat sexual dysfunctions, It can also play a very important role in improving the sexual life of people without any such disorder.

5. Neuropsychology

The nervous system is the base of operations for everything that has to do with our behavior, our emotions and feelings and our ability to think and communicate, so it is normal that one of the branches of psychology is oriented towards neurosciences.

Neuropsychology is a specialization halfway between neurology and psychology, and Its reason for being is the study of mental processes and the functioning of the brain when there is any alteration in this.

Neuropsychology is especially useful in the study of brain injuries, malformations, dysfunctions and diseases that affect the functioning of the nervous system. Thus, people who, from all branches of psychology, choose this specialization will be able to engage in the study of the relationships between mental (and behavioral) processes and what happens in the brain, to draw conclusions that allow a diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and control of symptoms.

6. Forensic psychology

This specialty is aimed at covering needs that appear within the judicial system. A forensic psychologist collects, analyzes and presents psychological evidence that will be taken into account in legal proceedings. For example, you can evaluate a researched person to examine the possibility that he or she has mental disorders, or provides evidence that supports the hypothesis that a person has false regards.

Unlike what happens during psychotherapy, in which information related to behavior is also collected and analyzed of a specific person, in the forensic psychological evaluation the interests of the psychologist or psychologist and those of the person examined do not match. In fact, among the tasks of the forensic psychologist is to explore the possibility that the examined person is lying to assert a version of the facts that benefit.

In addition to all this, the branch of the Forensic psychology is related to the creation of psychological profiles of criminals to aid in search and capture tasks.

7. Educational and developmental psychology

Almost all branches of psychology direct part of their attention to the processes of learning, but the specialization in educational psychology directs all your attention to them. The goal of this branch is apply techniques and strategies to make learning happen as successfully as possible, ensuring that there is a good fit between learners and teachers.

Furthermore, educational psychology understands the concept "education" in its broadest sense. It does not only have to do with what young people do in school, but it applies to all areas in which learning has a leading role, either in training courses for workers or within families and communities that must adapt to a new situation.

In fact, From the psychology of education, more and more importance is given to the need to conceive education as a network work, which is exercised far beyond schools and academies. That is why part of the efforts of educational psychologists are aimed at putting different agents who, among themselves, have a role in the education of a group of people: teachers, social workers, relatives, etc.

The developmental psychology it is closely related to the psychology of education and is often perceived as one and the same thing. However, the first is more oriented to the behavioral changes that have to do with the maturational development of people and their passage through the different stages of growth, from childhood to old age.

This is used from educational psychology to establish criteria that allow knowing what are the capacities and learning limits of people, depending on what stage of development be found. For example, the fact that a girl is five years old makes it possible to assume that she will not be able to learn content that requires the use of a moderately elaborate formal logic.

8. Sports psychology

The branch of the sports psychology aims to implement strategies to make the psychological and physical performance of athletes lead them to improve their results, both in what It concerns his individual performance as well as that involving his cooperation and coordination with other people on his team question). The objective is to make the psychological dynamics, the strategies learned and the emotional state in which the athlete is in, lead him to find himself in an optimal situation to make the most of his capabilities.

The psychologists who choose this branch are involved in many of the processes that are addressed from clinical and educational psychology, such as the follow-up of self-instructions, the development of a good self-esteem and self-image, conflict resolution, habits that have to do with communication during sports sessions, etc.

9. Social psychology

This is one of the most interesting branches of psychology, since places special emphasis on the dimension of the collective, the relationships between people in a context. Thus, the Social psychology It is aimed at investigating the way in which the presence of other people (whether real or imagined) affects the mental processes of the individual.

It is, therefore, a specialization that, although it belongs to psychology, is closer to sociology than the other branches. In addition, being one of the great areas of psychology, it can play an important role in the rest of the branches of this discipline: in organizational psychology, in educational psychology, etc.

10. Community psychology

Community psychology can be understood as a drift from social psychology oriented towards research and intervention on problems that affect specific communities and localized groups of people.

Its objective is to generate both material changes in the context of these people and new dynamics of relationships between them that allow their quality of life and decision-making capacity to improve.

In addition, the research and intervention strategies of community psychologists promote the participation of community members throughout the process.

11. Relationship and family psychology

This branch of psychology can be understood as a specialization within clinical psychology which also takes ingredients from social and community psychology and, in the case of couple therapy, of sexology. It focuses on conflict resolution within families, and the sessions offered tend to be in groups.

12. Basic and experimental psychology

Basic psychology is a branch of psychology totally focused on the investigation of the most general psychological processes that have to do with human behavior. It is oriented to the study of the typical psychological processes of mature and healthy human beings, to discover trends and patterns that characterize the entire human population.

This specialty of psychology is responsible, therefore, for the study of basic psychological processes such as memory, attention, reasoning or decision-making, placing much more emphasis on the mechanisms on which these are based than on the way in which the context influences them.

Bibliographic references:

• Triglia, Adrián; Regader, Bertrand; Garcia-Allen, Jonathan. (2016). Psychologically speaking. Paidos. ISBN 9788449332531.
• Vidales, Ismael. (2004). General psychology. Mexico: Limusa. ISBN 9681863739.