Branches and Schools of Thought in Psychology

Posted on Feb 24, 2025 in Psychology and Sociology

Branches of Psychology

  • Psychology: The scientific study of the human mind and behavior: how we think, feel, act, and interact individually and in groups.
  • Health Psychology: Uses knowledge of psychology and health to promote general well-being and understand physical illness.
  • Clinical Psychology: Deals with a wide range of mental and physical health problems, including addiction, anxiety, depression, learning difficulties, and relationship issues.
  • Educational Psychology: Tackles challenges such as learning difficulties, social and emotional problems, issues around disability, as well as more complex developmental disorders.
  • Research Psychology: Research underpins much of the teaching and practice of psychology as it provides the evidence base for psychological theory and the effectiveness of treatments, interventions, tests, and teaching methods.
  • Occupational Psychology: Applies the science of psychology to work, including psychometrics and assessment, learning and development, stress management, organizational change, coaching, and job design.
  • Counseling Psychology: Deals with a wide range of mental health problems concerning life issues, including bereavement, domestic violence, sexual abuse, traumas, and relationship issues.
  • Neuropsychology: Is concerned with the assessment and rehabilitation of people with brain injury or other neurological diseases.
  • Sport Psychology: Sport psychology’s predominant aim is to help athletes prepare psychologically for the demands of competition and training.
  • Exercise Psychology: Is primarily concerned with the application of psychology to increase exercise participation and motivational levels in the general public.
  • Forensic Psychology: Is concerned with the psychological aspects of legal processes in courts.

Schools of Thought in Psychology

  • Structuralism: School of thought that believes that the structure of mental processes is more important than its function. Introspection is used as a method. The best-known author is Wundt.
  • Functionalism: School of thought that considers the function of mental processes to be the most important thing in humans. Its most important author is Charles Darwin.
  • Psychoanalysis: School of thought founded by Freud. He believed that people could be cured by making their unconscious thoughts and motivations conscious. Its aim in therapy is to release repressed emotions and experiences.
  • Behaviorism: School of thought that was concerned exclusively with measurable and observable data and excluded ideas, emotions, and the consideration of inner mental experience and activity in general. Humans are seen as organisms that only respond to conditions set by the outer environment and inner biological processes. Watson and Skinner are both the founders.
  • Gestalt Psychology: School of thought that emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than its parts.
  • Humanistic Psychology: School of thought that emphasizes the study of the whole person. It looks at human behavior not only through the eyes of the observer but through the eyes of the person doing the behaving.
  • Cognitive Psychology: School of thought that studies mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem-solving, creativity, and thinking.