More often than not, students who are new to the subject matter always greet the subject with the common question of what psychology really means.  The incorrect notions of psychology, as popularized by the media, along with those holding various psychology degrees had contributed a lot to the confusion. 

So what does psychology really means?  Psychology refers to both the academic and applied studies on human behavior and mind.  Researches done in relation to the subject aimed to understand deeply and to explain the emotions, thoughts and behaviors of human beings.  The diverse applications of psychology include treatments, mental health, self-help, ergonomics, performance enhancement, and many others that affect one’s health and day-to-day life.

Psychology advanced out of biology and philosophy.  Discussions of these two subjects started as far as the time of Greek thinkers, Socrates and Aristotle.  The term psychology has been derived from “psyche,” which means, “mind” or “soul” in Greek.  The field of psychology and the real study began when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychology laboratory situated in Leipzig, Germany.  And Wundt’s first research was known as structuralism, which utilized some series of thoughts.  Structuralism relied so much on analysis of feelings and sensations with the use of an extremely high subjective process called introspection.  The study was initiated from Wundt’s belief that a well-trained individual is capable of identifying mental processes that came with a person’s sensations, thoughts and feelings.

All throughout the history of psychology, series of thoughts have been thought to form behaviors and men’s varied thoughts.  This school of thoughts were said to dominate the mind for a certain period.  Sometimes, such thoughts are viewed as competing forces wherein each perspective has its own contribution to one’s comprehension on the field of psychology.  Among the several schools of thoughts in psychology are Psychoanalysis, Structuralism, Functionalism, Humanism, Behaviorism, and Cognitivism.

At present, most of the many psychologists prefer to apply a more objective and scientific approach to better apprehend, predict and explain human behaviors.  In psychology, there are two major areas that are especially focused on.  Such areas are applied psychology and academic psychology.  In academic psychology, studies are focused on the varied sub-topics in relation to psychology such as social psychology, developmental psychology, and personality psychology. 

Psychologists busy themselves with assorted of researches to provide ample information and to expand one’s theoretical knowledge, particularly for students.  On the other hand, not all psychologists share the same area of research.  Other researchers are into applied research, which aims to seek answers for everyday problems.  In applied psychology, this field focuses on what psychological principles can do in solving real existing problems.  The assorted areas under applied psychology are ergonomics, industrial-organizational psychology, and forensic psychology.  Furthermore, there are already lots and lots of professional psychologists who work as therapists and they help people burden with mental, behavioral, mental and psychological problems to ease their dilemmas by counseling and treatments. 

Far from its original roots already, psychology has certainly steered away from its humble beginnings.  Psychologists now have employed more scientific techniques in studying human behaviors, and some of these scientific methods include correlational studies, experiments, longitudinal studies and more tests to predict and explain behaviors.

Psychology is indeed a broad and truly diverse field of study.  It has its diverse specialty areas, as well as sub-fields.  There is abnormal psychology, biological psychology, clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, comparative psychology, developmental psychology, forensic psychology, personality psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, school psychology and social psychology. 

Further along, the subject of psychology does not come without any criticism.  The most common of which is its being so unlikely scientific.  Thomas Kuhn, a great philosopher in his time suggested around 1962 that psychology is in a pre-paradigmatic state, which means it lacked the facts agreement found mostly in other mature fields of science such as physics and chemistry.  This argument came to being based on psychology relying mostly on fuzzy materials like questionnaires and surveys.  And from this, critics acclaimed that psychology is not scientific at all, as what psychologists assumed. 

In recent years, debates still continue to arise.  However, regardless of whatever critics there are about psychology, it significantly continues to be popular and still taken as one of the major aspects of science.