Psychologist

The term psychologist is actually an umbrella term for many different jobs within the same discipline. In short, a psychologist is someone who studies the human mind—a simple definition with many possibilities.

As a psychologist, you are well-versed in research methods. In fact, you may make your living doing research every day. As an experimental psychologist, for example, you run human experiments to establish the validity of a hypothesis. Don’t worry—that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re putting needles or electric cables into people’s brains. It could be as simple as observing kids in the park.

As a school psychologist, you work on-campus. You advise children about careers, friends, family, and health issues. Another option is an industrial organizational psychologist. This is someone who works with employees to ensure a healthy work environment. There are many other types of psychologists, but the most well-known is the clinical psychologist, sometimes known as a psychotherapist. If this is your position, you provide therapy to clients in a variety of formats including talk therapy (discussing issues verbally), hypnosis, or group therapy.

One common misconception is that psychologists also prescribe medication to patients. In fact, therapy is the main focus and you would recommend your patient to a psychiatrist, psychiatric nurse practitioner, or physician for medication management.

Regardless of your title, you focus on the way the brain works, how to better understand it, and how to help people who are having emotional, memory, sleep, or interpersonal problems.