It is quite common to think that psychologists are dedicated to solving certain types of personal “patient” problems. Problems of a behavioural nature, such as alcohol addiction; of an emotional nature, such as the pain caused by the death of a loved one, or related to pathologies also treated by psychiatry.

In short, psychology is, for a good part of the population, the practice of carrying out psychotherapy , if not directly something that has to do with couches, hypnosis and psychoanalysis in general.

The different specialities (branches) of psychology

However, if we stop to examine more closely what psychology is and what it has been throughout history, we will realize that the fields and areas in which it can be applied are far broader than the iconic image of Sigmund Freud providing psychotherapy services would suggest. In fact, psychology can have as many facets as the activities carried out by human beings .

This is what makes it so that there is not just one psychology, but many branches of psychology that are oriented towards different areas of application and different objectives. Psychology consisting of the performance of psychotherapy with patients is, therefore, only one of the many specialties that exist within the science of behavior.

So, if you want to know what the different branches of psychology are and what their job prospects are, you’ll do well to read what follows.

Psychology of organizations and work

The psychology of organizations and work (the latter also known as industrial psychology ) is related to research and intervention on workers, with the aim of finding strategies to make their level of performance optimal, taking into account the needs of each of them and those of the organization as a whole. E s, therefore, the application of psychology to the world of work .

People who work in organizational psychology usually work within the Human Resources departments of companies, or they can offer their services from agencies specialized in the selection of personnel, the provision of training courses, the creation of more effective work dynamics, etc.

As the activities carried out within an organization are very varied, this branch of psychology has, in turn, many aspects.

One of its facets, for example, is oriented to that which makes each of the workers, individually, perform well in their work place , whether it is intervening on the tools that each person has, studying their strengths and weaknesses, carrying out studies on ergonomics to check whether they work comfortably or not, etc. This facet of specialisation is usually called work psychology, or industrial psychology, as it has more to do with the performance of each of the workers and their immediate working environment.

The other facet of this speciality of psychology, on the other hand, is oriented towards the dynamics of work and the relationships between the people who make up the organisation , and therefore has to do with the work climate, leadership studies, the resolution of conflicts of interest, the creation of effective communication flows, etc. This is organizational psychology.

The psychology of work and organizations is, in addition, the branch of psychology that usually has a greater work output, and therefore is usually a very valuable professional option. Within it, the selection of personnel tends to be that which creates the most jobs .

2. Psychology of marketing and the consumer

The psychology of marketing is born from the psychology of organizations, in the sense that it is oriented to cover the needs of the productive gear of companies . In this case, these needs consist of providing an outlet for the products or services that are offered, making the potential demand for these go towards the company’s offer.

In short, among all branches of psychology this specialization is focused on research aimed at creating services and products that are attractive to the client . Therefore, it intervenes in the creation of the marketing plan, advertising and product design.

Marketing and consumer psychology specializes in making what organizations offer as attractive as possible to the type of customer to whom they want to sell the product or service, and also establishes which communication strategies are most useful to reach this customer . This is a discipline that overlaps with what media and advertising agencies have traditionally done, which is why this type of psychologist works together with professionals in these fields.

Among the most valuable assets of marketing and consumer psychology is neuromarketing, which applies techniques from the neurosciences to see how potential clients or consumers respond to pieces of advertising, designs of packaging (the product packaging), etc. Advertising psychologists can also play an important role in these design processes according to the way they interpret the reading of brain activation patterns, the tracking of eye movement before an advertising poster, etc.

This is one of the most important specialties of psychology in a context where consumers are increasingly immune and skeptical of advertising.

3. Clinical and health psychology

This is one of the best known branches of psychology, if not the most, and consists of research and intervention focused on psychological problems more or less severe that affect people’s quality of life. If the psychological disorders are related to mental disorders, clinical psychologists will work together with other health professionals on the diagnosis, prognosis, intervention and control of the psychological disorders.

People who belong to this specialty of psychology offer a service called psychotherapy and whose form, approach and procedures can vary greatly, depending on the psychological orientation that you have and the tools you have. As a result, not all health psychologists work in the same way or have the same training , although they can be included within the category of mental health professionals.

4. Sexology

The specialization of sexology within the field of psychology has to do with n the application of psychology to the resolution of problems of sexuality . This is a branch of psychology derived from clinical and health psychology, but which is oriented towards the treatment of patients’ sexual lives.

Although the psychology of sexology is especially useful in treating sexual dysfunctions, it can also play a very important role in improving the sexual life of people without any such disorder.

5. Neuropsychology

The nervous system is the base of operations for everything that has to do with our behavior, our emotions and feelings and our ability to think and communicate, so it is normal that one of the branches of psychology is oriented towards the neurosciences.

Neuropsychology is a specialization halfway between neurology and psychology, and its raison d’être is the study of mental processes and the functioning of the brain when there is an alteration in it .

Neuropsychology is especially useful in the study of brain injuries, malformations, dysfunctions and diseases that affect the functioning of the nervous system. Therefore, people from all branches of psychology who opt for this specialization can dedicate themselves to the study of the relationships between mental (and behavioral) processes and what occurs in the brain, in order to draw conclusions that allow for a diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and control of symptoms.

6. Forensic psychology

This specialty is oriented to cover needs that appear within the judicial system. A forensic psychologist collects, analyses and presents psychological evidence that will be taken into account in judicial proceedings . For example, he or she may evaluate a person under investigation to examine the possibility that he or she has mental disorders, or provide evidence that reinforces the hypothesis that a person has false memories.

Unlike in psychotherapy, where information related to the behaviour of a specific person is also collected and analysed, in forensic psychological evaluation the interests of the psychologist and the person examined do not coincide. In fact, one of the tasks of the forensic psychologist is to explore the possibility that the person examined is lying in order to assert a version of the facts that will benefit him/her.

In addition to all this, the branch of forensic psychology is related to the creation of psychological profiles of criminals to assist in search and capture tasks.

7. Psychology of education and development

Almost all branches of psychology direct part of their attention to learning processes, but the specialization in educational psychology directs all its attention to them. The objective of this branch is to apply techniques and strategies to make learning as satisfactory as possible , making a good fit between learners and teachers.

Furthermore, educational psychology understands the concept of “education” in its broadest sense. It is not just about what young people do at school, but applies to all areas where learning plays a major role, whether in training courses for workers or within families and communities that have to adapt to a new situation.

In fact, from the perspective of educational psychology, more and more importance is given to the need to conceive education as a network , which is exercised far beyond schools and academies. That is why part of the efforts of educational psychologists are directed at putting in contact different agents that, among themselves, have a role in the education of a group of people: teachers, social workers, family members, etc.

Developmental psychology is closely related to educational psychology and they are often perceived as one and the same thing. However, the former is more oriented towards behavioural changes that have to do with the maturing development of people and their passage through the different stages of growth, from childhood to old age.

This is used by educational psychology to establish criteria that allow us to know which are the capacities and limits of learning of people, depending on what stage of development they are. For example, the fact that a girl is five years old makes it possible to assume that she will not be able to learn content that requires the use of a moderately elaborated formal logic.

8. Sports psychology

The branch of sports psychology aims to implement strategies to make the psychological and physical performance of athletes lead them to improve their results, both in terms of their individual performance and in that which involves their cooperation and coordination with other people in their team (if there are teams in the sport in question). The aim is to ensure that the psychological dynamics, the learned strategies and the emotional state in which the athlete finds him or herself are in an optimal situation to make the most of their abilities.

The psychologists who choose this branch intervene in many of the processes that are approached from clinical and educational psychology, such as the follow-up of self-instructions, the development of good self-esteem and self-image, the resolution of conflicts, the habits that have to do with communication during sport sessions, etc.

9. Social psychology

This is one of the most interesting branches of psychology, since puts special emphasis on the dimension of the collective, the relationships between people in a context . Thus, social psychology is oriented towards investigating the way in which the presence of other people (whether real or imagined) affects the mental processes of the individual.

It is, therefore, a specialization that, although it belongs to psychology, is closer to sociology than the other branches. Moreover, as it is one of the great fields of psychology, it can play an important role in the other branches of this discipline: in the psychology of organizations, in education, etc.

10. Community Psychology

Community psychology can be understood as a derivation of social psychology oriented to research and intervention on problems that affect specific communities and localized groups of people.

Its objective is to generate both material changes in the context of these people and new dynamics of relationships between them that will allow their quality of life and decision-making capacity to improve.

In addition, the research and intervention strategies of the community psychologists promote the participation of community members in the whole process .

11. Psychology of couples and families

This branch of psychology can be understood as a specialization within clinical psychology that also takes ingredients from social and community psychology and, in the case of couples therapy services, from sexology. It focuses on conflict resolution within families, and the sessions offered are usually in groups.

12. Basic and experimental psychology

Basic psychology is a branch of psychology totally devoted to the investigation of the most general psychological processes that have to do with human behavior . It is oriented towards the study of the psychological processes typical of mature and healthy human beings, in order to discover tendencies and patterns that characterize the entire human population.

This specialty of psychology is therefore concerned with the study of basic psychological processes such as memory, attention, reasoning or decision making, placing much more emphasis on the mechanisms on which these are based than on the way in which the context influences them.

Bibliographic references:

  • Triglia, Adrian; Regader, Bertrand; Garcia-Allen, Jonathan. (2016). Psychologically speaking. Paidós. . ISBN 9788449332531.
  • Vidales, Ishmael. (2004). Psicología general. Mexico: Limusa. ISBN 9681863739.