Specialty Areas in Psychology

What are some of the major specialty areas of psychology? Psychology is remarkably diverse with a tremendous range of specialty areas. Psychologists frequently choose to specialize in a subfield that is focused on a particular subject within psychology. Many of these specialty areas in psychology require graduate study in a given area of interest. Learn more about some of the largest subfields in which psychologists work.

Let's take a closer look at a few major specialty areas in psychology.

Clinical Psychology

Clinical psychologists make up the single largest specialty area in psychology. Clinicians are psychologists who assess, diagnose and treat mental illnesses. They frequently work in mental health centers, private or group practices or hospitals.

Within the area of clinical psychology, there are also a number of sub-specialty areas. Some professionals are generalists and work with a wide range of clients while others specialize in treating certain types of psychological disorders or a certain age group.

For example, some clinical psychologists might work in a hospital setting with individuals suffering from brain injuries or neurological conditions. Other clinical psychologists might work in a mental health center to counsel individuals or families coping with stress, mental illness, substance abuse or personal problems.

Clinical psychologists usually perform a broad range of tasks on a daily basis such as interviewing patients, conducting assessments, giving diagnostic tests, performing psychotherapy and administering programs. Work settings can vary based on the particular population that a clinician is working with. Typical work settings include hospitals, schools, universities, prisons, mental health clinics, and private practices.

There are also a number of different sub-specialty areas within clinical psychology, including health psychology, neuropsychology, and geropsychology.

Counseling Psychology

Counseling psychologists make up another large specialty area in psychology. These professionals perform many of the same tasks that clinical psychologists do, but counseling psychologists tend to work with clients suffering from less severe forms of mental illness.

Counseling psychology focuses on providing therapeutic treatments to clients who experience a wide variety of symptoms. The Society of Counseling Psychology describes the field as "a specialty within professional psychology that maintains a focus on facilitating personal and interpersonal functioning across the life span. The specialty pays particular attention to emotional, social, vocational, educational, health-related, developmental, and organizational concerns."

Experimental Psychology

Experimental psychologists (or research psychologists) conduct research on the behavior of humans and animals. They often work at universities, private research centers, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Some major areas of research include substance abuse, genetics, neuroscience, motivation, and cognitive processes.

Forensic Psychology

Forensic psychologists work in the specialty area that deals with the intersection of psychology and the law. Forensic psychologists are often involved in custody disputes, insurance claims, and lawsuits. Some professionals work in family courts and offer psychotherapy services, perform child custody evaluations, investigate reports of child abuse and conduct visitation risk assessments.

Those working in the civil courts often assess competency, provide second opinions and provide psychotherapy to crime victims. Professionals working in criminal courts conduct evaluations of mental competency, work with child witnesses and provide an assessment of juvenile and adult offenders.

Human Factors Psychology

Human factors is a specialty area of psychology that focuses on a range of different topics, including ergonomics, workplace safety, human error, product design, human capability, and human-computer interaction. In fact, the terms human factors and ergonomics are often used synonymously, with human factors being commonly used in the United States and ergonomics in Europe.

Human factors involve applying the principles of psychology in designing products and creating work environments that boost productivity while minimizing safety issues. The field of human factors formally began during World War II, when a range of experts worked together to improve the safety of airplanes. Since that time, human factors psychology has continued to grow and today plays an important role in many other fields, including computing, manufacturing, product design, engineering, military, and government industries.

Industrial-Organizational Psychology

Industrial-organizational psychology focuses on workplace behavior and is one of the fastest-growing specialty areas in psychology. The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychologists (SIOP) describes I-O psychology as a field that "tries to understand and measure human behavior to improve employees' satisfaction in their work, employers' ability to select and promote the best people, and to generally make the workplace better for the men and women who work there."

The rising demand for skilled psychologists has led to an increase in the number of university programs offering degrees in industrial-organizational psychology. I-O psychologists perform a variety of functions, including hiring qualified employees, conducting tests, designing products, creating training courses and performing research on different aspects of the workplace.

School Psychology

School psychologists are part of a specialty area that involves working within the educational system to help children with emotional, social and academic issues. The goal of school psychology is to collaborate with parents, teachers, and students to promote a healthy learning environment that focuses on the needs of children. School psychologists work with individual students and groups of students to deal with behavioral problems, academic difficulties, disabilities, and other issues. They also work with teachers and parents to develop techniques to deal with home and classroom behavior. Other tasks include training students, parents, and teachers about how to manage crisis situations and substance abuse problems.

Social Psychology

Social psychologists are focused on understanding how interactions with other people impact individual and group behavior. These professionals often work in areas such as market research, organizational management, systems design, and other applied areas. Prominent areas of study include group behavior, leadership, attitudes, and perception.