• Question: what field of psychology would you say is best to study for someone who wants to be a psychologist within mental health ( working inside asylums to study human behaviour).

    Asked by anon-184167 to Tom, sarahhodge, Owen, Nathan, Lorna, Abbie on 7 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Abbie Jordan

      Abbie Jordan answered on 7 Nov 2018:

      Hello Nikkita. That’s a big question too. I think clinical psychology makes the most sense if you are interested in mental health. That gives you the opportunity to work with people who have mental health issues (as in be a clinical psychologist) or conduct research in this area as an academic psychologist. So you could teach students who want to become a clinical psychologist and do research (a lecturer in this area). I am a health psychologist but I share the floor in our building at work (uni) with clinical psychologists).

      There is an overlap with health (typically more physical health) and clinical psychology (typically mental health) and an area called clinical health psychology. That’s a possibility too.

      See here for the British Psychological Society’s information about clinical psychology – https://careers.bps.org.uk/area/clinical

      Good luck!!!

    • Photo: Lorna Camus

      Lorna Camus answered on 8 Nov 2018:

      Hey! That is a big question!
      I agree with Abbie that clinical psychology is what seems most logical.
      However, I don’t believe you need to be a clinical psychologist to work in mental health. You say you want to work in psychiatric hospitals (which we don’t really call asylums anymore) and that you want to study human behaviour. You will most probably want to be a clinical psychologist (or associate, more on that in a second) if you want to work in psychiatric hospitals, but if you want to work with patients, helping them with therapies for example, being a clinical psychologist is not the only, or best, option. You can become a counselor through different studies, and you would then be providing counseling services to patients. You can also become a Clinical Associate in Applied Psychology by doing an Applied Psychology Master after your undergraduate degree. This is somewhat anecdotal, but two clinical psychologists told me that, currently, clinical psychologists are too busy with higher level administration (since they are more highly ranked) to have time to work with patients. So if that is your main goal I would suggest looking into different options and asking professionals if you can!
      Now, you also said you wanted to study human behaviour, I assume in a mental health context. In this case, you don’t really need to be a clinical psychologist at all to do that. Whether you want to go into hospitals or not to do so, being a researcher in mental health doesn’t require a clinical doctorate, you just need to specialise in mental health subjects as your studies go on. This is exactly what I did! In my undergrad, I took all the mental health related classes I could, and did my dissertation on vloggers’ experiences of mental health difficulties, and how they spoke about it online. In my Master, I took extra courses (for no credit) in the clinical psychology department, and did my dissertation on mental health and autistic traits. I am now looking at mental health in autism because this is what I chose, but nothing would stop you from deciding to look at mental health in hospitals.
      The field you decide to pick in psychology would then have more to do with what aspect of mental health, or what population you want to work with. If you want to look at children’s mental health, you could pick developmental psychology. If you want to look at societal/social aspects of mental health, you could pick social psychology. If you want to look at brain functions associated with mental health, you could pick cognitive psychology.
      These are only some examples, but I hope that helps 🙂

    • Photo: Nathan Hook

      Nathan Hook answered on 9 Nov 2018:

      I’d suggest starting with a general psychology degree. That will lay the groundwork and give you a much better idea of your interests. After that, you could do a specialist clinical masters degree, and go on to the ‘professional doctorate’ in clinical psychology (like a PhD, but applied training for a job).

      Bear in mind there is a difference between treating people and doing research – though in a field like this the researcher might also be qualified to treat, and then have higher qualifications as well.

      Incidentally, I’m not sure the term ‘asylum’ is still used very much.

      You may like to look up NHS jobs in this field – that will give you a better idea of what jobs really exist and what qualifications they require.

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