One of the most common questions that most of the psychology students that are new to the field ask is that what psychology is. In simple terms psychology is defined as an applied and academic field that deals with the study of human mind and behavior. Researches in psychology aims in understanding the thought, emotion and even behavior; the fields in which psychology is applied are the mental health treatment, performance enhancement areas, self help, ergonomics and even many other fields that affect health and daily life. The word psychology owes its roots to the Greek word psyche which means soul or mind. Psychology has evolved partially from philosophy and biology, and these date as far as the early Greek thinkers like that of Aristotle and even Socrates. It has been observed that the field and study of psychology dates has its roots since Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychological lab in Leipzig in Germany. The research studies conducted by the Wundt included the school of thought called as structuralism which involved the study of structures that have composed the structures that composed the mind. This categorization involved the analysis of the sensation and the feeling through the usage of introspection, which is considered as a highly subjective matter. He believed that the individuals who are trained really well can accurately identify the mental processes that are accompanied by the feelings, sensations and even thoughts.
Areas of psychology
Psychology is one of the broadest and diverse fields. There are number of different subfields and specialty areas have emerged. The below mentioned areas have emerged as one of the most dynamic sub fields of the research sub fields within psychology:
1.Abnormal psychology is defined as the study of abnormal behavior and psychopathology. This specialty area focuses on the research and the treatment of different varieties of mental disorders and this area is also linked to the psychotherapy and even clinical psychology. The health professionals make the usage of the diagnostic and statistical manual of the mental disorders so as to diagnose the different applications of mental disorders. 2.Biological Psychology is also referred as biopsychology; this studies in detail how the different biological processes have an influence on the mind and the behavior. This kind of psychology aims at closely linking to the neurosciences and it also utilizes the different tools like MRI and PET scans so as to examine the brain injuries and even the brain abnormalities. 3.Clinical psychology, another important area of psychology mainly focuses on the assessment, diagnosis and even the treatment of the mental disorders. 4.Another important area of psychology is referred as the cognitive psychology that mainly aims to study the human though processes and cognitions. The experts in this field mainly study on the topics like attention, memory, perception, decision making and language acquisition. 5.The branch of psychology that deals with the study of animal behavior is called as comparative psychology; the knowledge about the animal behavior can lead to a deeper insight and understanding of human psychology. Article keywords: