Careers in Psychology paper for school

Careers in Psychology

"For me personally, child and adolescent psychology, a family therapist or a sports psychologist. I love each of these fields for different reasons. I am interested in child or family psychology because I came from what people would call a "broken" family, I've seen abuse and I've lived moving house to house and I know how that can affect kids and everyone in the family. If I could help someone get through what I've been through, that would be a dream come true. Then sports psychology comes in because through all that I went through, one thing helped me express how I was feeling and gave me a place to release what I was holding on to: dance class. I love dance and would love to help others by getting them into an activity, such as dance, so that they can have an outlet and a place they can be free without fear or stress.

For my ultimate dream job, it would be the sports psychology which is also referred to as performance psychology. This is the person that helps individual players and teams realize their potential and helps them get through frustrating times. I would more used it as a relaxation exercise and as visualization techniques for people, rather than just athletes. As I said, sometimes the best therapy is having somewhere to go without judgment to be able to just release all stress and emotion.

Most performance psychology careers require a masters or doctoral degree in clinical, counseling or sport psychology. It is even more impressive if the individual specialized in applied sport psychology, clinical sport psychology, and academic sport psychology.

With children and adolescent, I would lean towards developmental psychology. This is the study of human growth and development over the individual's lifespan. This growth includes all physical, cognitive, social, intellectual, personality and emotional growth.

To work in a developmental psychology field it is often that a doctoral degree is needed. This is often accomplished by following the steps through undergraduate in psychology then getting masters followed by a doctoral.

As a different field, I would choose social psychology. This is the study of social influences, social perception and social interaction that has influenced the individual and the individual's behavior. For a social psychology career a person usually gets their bachelor's degree in general psychology or another psychology related field. It is then often that these people go towards their master's or doctoral, which can take up to five years for completion.

When looking at social psychology fields, it is often seen in teaching or research at a college. Social psychologists can be seen as consultants and help evaluate programs in education, conflict resolution and protection. There is also working in different clinical fields such as group psychology in hospitals to rehabilitate people to get ready to live in the "real world" again.

People with these backgrounds have seemingly unlimited options, whether it be my child psychology degree or sports psychology. With child psychology, developmental psychology and social psychology, there is clinical work in doctors offices and hospitals, schools or other psychology offices (or even forming your own office). With sports psychology, they are usually around athletes, so this would be more looking at working in a university or for a professional team. When looking from my stand point though, I would be more wanting to form my own office and use sports psychology as a physical outlet.

I got into psychology as my study because I've always had a want to help others, especially children and teens. I have more of a focus on younger adults and children because I know, for myself, that I felt I wasn't listened to or that my opinion didn't matter. That was really hard and I would have given anything for someone to look at me and ask if I was okay, because after watching my mom get abused and my dad get abused, of course I was far from being okay. Though, I had no one to express this to since I knew my parents didn't want me to know what was going on, even though I did. Holding that up in myself was the hardest part because I felt like there was a huge weight and a huge secret on my shoulders. With this, I want to be that person, the person a child or teen can come to and let all their fears out and tell me what is going on from their perspective. To have that one person can change an entire individual's life, and I want to be that person."