How Psychology and Counseling can be Used to Help People

Psychology refers to the study of the mind of people, together with their corresponding behavior. Just like any other science, it makes use of the scientific method to help understand how the mind works, both individually and as groups while establishing general principles and what seems to be normal and what is deviant from this norm. People who study psychology are called psychologists and their aim is to understand mental functions and social behavior. Counseling on the other hand means to provide assistance of guidance to help others resolve problems and conflicts whether personal, social or psychological. With this, one can see that psychology and counseling go hand in hand as psychology allows one to understand how the mind works and this knowledge can be used to help counsel people as to what the best thing to do in certain situations.

Counseling psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses on providing treatment for patients with a wide variety of symptoms. It is a large area of psychology and covers many broad domains such as counseling process and outcome, career development counseling, prevention and health, etc. It aims to facilitate personal as well as interpersonal functioning in a person’s life with regards to social, emotional, vocational, developmental and health related concerns. It uses previous information from theory, research, and practice so that people may be able to improve their overall well-being, help in adjusting to different stressors in their lives, resolve conflicts and crises and live more high functioning lives.

Counseling psychology is different from clinical psychology in the sense that counseling psychology deals more with healthy individuals while clinical psychology is more medical and deals with people with serious mental illnesses. Because of this, clinical psychologists focus more on treating diseases such as depression and schizophrenia. Counseling psychology deals with a much broader field and helps people deal with their problems, overcome them and realize their full potential.

To become a counseling psychologist, the minimum degree that will be required of you is a Ph.D. in addition to this; one must also have completed supervised internships and pass the state certification exam before you can be eligible to obtain your professional license. Even after you have obtained your license, professionals are still continually learning, perfecting our technique and know how to deal with different types of patients. It will usually be through experience as to how counselors will be able to differentiate different kinds of depression and how to treat these.

Counseling psychologists have a number of options for work. There is an increasing trend of private institutions that hire counseling psychologists to help deal with their employees. But there are also various branches in the government as well as educational institutions that require the services of a counselor.

Counseling and psychology are two things that work closely together as they overlap in a lot of aspects. Becoming a counseling psychologist will take a long time as you will still need a graduate degree and complete an internship program before you can obtain your license. But if you are really intent on helping people, then this profession is definitely a rewarding and fulfilling one.