PSYCHOLOGY- COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

As someone who is studying to be a psychologist, it is very irksome to have to deal with certain misconceptions people have about my subject and having to explain this to people I meet daily. This I think is specially true in India where the exposure to the science of psychology is not yet complete, thus leading to a lot of false impressions about our profession.

          One of the first things people ask me when I say that I’m studying Psychology is-‘So can you read minds yet?’ So let me first clear this point up. Folks, we are not telepathists! We do not and can not read minds! The field of psychology is the study of behaviors and mental processes. We study how certain behaviors are caused and why we may behave in the way we do and also about certain processes like thinking, reasoning, perception and so on. This is a broad definition of psychology and when we get down to the micro level, it involves a lot more processes.

          The second common misconception is that psychology deals with only ‘Crazy Behavior’. This is the most polite of ways in which people term it. Again I would like to correct this by telling that yes, we do deal with abnormal behavior but I would also like to clarify that it is but a section of the subject and not the whole. Abnormal Psychology i.e. the study of abnormal behavior and clinical psychology, the branch of psychology dealing with the treatment of the disorders of the mind is only a small fraction of what psychology is in its entirety.

          Thirdly, we i.e. psychologists are often confused with psychiatrists. So let me attempt to distinguish between the two. Psychiatrists are essentially doctors by profession and help in treating abnormal behavior through medication and so on. A psychologist, when trained in clinical psychology or counselling, does not have the license to dispense medications. They help resolve psychological problems through means of other kinds of therapies.

          There are many branches of psychology, each dealing with a specific aspect of behavior and psychological/mental processes. As mentioned above, we have the clinical psychologists. Below them fall the counsellors who are going to deal with problems of a lesser severity and also those of day-to-day living. Then we have educational psychologists who study academia in its entirety. Next we have cognitive psychologists who study psychological processes like memory, thinking, information processing, attention and so on. Next we have health psychologists, who attempt to help people with physical health issues. These are only the tip of the ice-berg when it comes to psychology.

          I’ve noticed that people are either extremely awed by my subject or it is the other extreme wherein people are freaked out by it or are highly skeptical about it and refuse to term it as a precise science. Hopefully I’ve cleared away at least a few doubts people may have had about my subject. If there are any further doubts about my subject, I will be very happy to help clear it up.

          All in all, I am extremely fortunate that I found psychology to study. I have a feeling that the relationship between psychology and me is going to be a life-long one with hopefully contributions to each other! I am sure to gain a lot more by its study but I also hope to contribute something to it as well, someday not in the too distant future!!!