What is a psychologist? Here’s what makes it useful

Psychology can be complicated to understand from the outside. Here is an overview of its functions.

Psychology is a field full of myths, in part perhaps because of how broad this field of knowledge and intervention is. That is why, although there is a lot of talk about this type of professional, many people are still not clear about what a psychologist is. are not clear about what a psychologist is.. It is a field of work that some relate to cruel experiments, others to dream interpretation sessions and others even to almost shamanic rituals.

However, nowadays the work of psychologists has nothing to do with that. Long gone are the days when therapy sessions in psychology were based on the "talking cure" proposed by the followers of Freud, and, despite the influences of postmodern relativism, ancestral rituals have never become part of this science.

What is a psychologist? A help to understand it

We will now take a look at the question of what psychologists are and what they do, going through the fundamental characteristics of this profession.

Psychologists and the relationship with mental health

The figure of the psychologist is often associated with mental health and with the fact of receiving people with disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, etc. in their office. This can lead to confuse their work with that of psychiatrists.. However, psychology enhances health through programs that are basically forms of training, or sophisticated education.

For example, a person with depression is helped to go through the phases of their disorder by mitigating the negative effects of this phenomenon, a person with a phobia is taught to reduce the level of fear and anxiety felt, etc. Psychiatry, on the other hand, tries to influence the organism in a more direct way, modifying it physically or chemically.

It is clear that this is not the only difference between psychologists and psychiatrists, but it is one that helps to grasp the essence of these professors. On the other hand, it should be noted that mental health is only one of the many fields in which psychology works. in which psychology works.

• Related article, "What is the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?"

Research in broad subject areas

What is it that psychology is dedicated to studying? If we had to look for a summarized version of the answer to this question, it would be "human behavior", understanding as behavior thoughts and emotions, not only physical movements. However, there are also many psychologists who study the behavior of non-human animals, and even some who study some in order to better understand others.

The relationship with the unconscious

Psychology today does not work with the Freudian conception of the unconscious in the human mind, since it rejects the idea of the unconscious.It rejects the idea that the mind can be divided into entities with their own agenda of interests. Instead, it works on the assumption that in mental processes non-consciousness is the norm (as it is in other animal species) and that consciousness only takes center stage for some things in our life, what we focus our attention on at any given moment.

Psychologists are not counselors or witches

Psychology is not a profession characterized by giving advice, but rather, as we have already seen, trains and educates in adaptive ways of coping with challenges, not in specific ways of acting.and not in specific ways of dealing with them. For example, they help to manage the stress produced by participation in a professional promotion program, but do not indicate at each moment how to act in order to maximize the chances of winning the boss's favor.

Similarly, they do not make important life decisions for the client based on their "wisdom" or anything like that. The big decisions are yours to make.

Do not intervene only in biology.

Psychologists do not try to detect a broken "part" in the mind of their patients, in the same way that a mechanic would do with his car. Instead, they observe the patient's behavioral habits and the way he or she relates to the outside world in order to detect relationships that, because of their content or the way in which they occur, generate a focus of social or psychological problems.

For example, a person who tends to believe that everything bad that happens to him is exclusively his own fault has an unhealthy pattern of relationships on which we intervene. The problem is the dynamic between you and the external world, not a particular part of your brain.

While parts of your nervous system may act abnormally, this is the result of habits to which you are accustomed, it need not be the cause. Thus, psychologists tend to act from events to biology, and not the other way around..