Careers in Psychology

Psychologists are employed in a wide range of fields:

Career Counselling - helping people in their choice of career, fitting people to the right job. Employed by schools, colleges, universities, privately-run personnel and management consultancy agencies.

Child Psychology - concerned with diagnosis and treatment of childhood disorders. Employed by hospitals, health service and educational organisations, and also in private practice.

Clinical Neuropsychology - applies an understanding of the neural basis of cognition, behaviour and emotion to assessment and treatment of adults and children with neurological disorders including stroke, head injury, dementia, and multiple sclerosis. Employed in acute hospitals, rehabilitation centres, aged care programmes, psychiatric settings, paediatric facilities and also in private practice.

Clinical Psychology - the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Employed by hospitals and other health service organisations, and also in private practice.

Counselling Psychology - helping people overcome social and emotional problems such as student study difficulties and relationship problems. Employed in schools, hospitals, medical practices and in private practice.

Educational Psychology - evaluation of school teaching, assessment, and class problems, advising and providing remedial treatment for 'problem children' and children needing educational guidance. Employed by state education departments.

Forensic Psychology - assessment and treatment of offenders and victims, implementing intervention programs. Employed by correctional organisations, community and family services, courts, drug prevention agencies, and also in private practice.

Health Psychology - concerned with the development of strategies to promote health and alleviate the problems associated with chronic illness. Employed in hospitals, community health centres and other health agencies, and also in private practice.

Human Factors Psychology and Ergonomics - designing and evaluating human-machine systems in order to maximise the effectiveness and safety of their operation. Employed by government research agencies, road safety authorities, industry, and consulting groups.

Organisational Psychology - concerned with the physical and emotional health, well-being and performance of individuals, groups and organisations, through attention to: vocational choice and decision-making; personnel selection, training and career development; adequate design of jobs, equipment and organisational structures; and appropriate management and leadership. Employed in the private and public sectors.

Sports Psychology - the application of psychological knowledge and skills, at the individual level, to understand and enhance sport performance and participation in sporting activities, team functioning, group leadership and morale and the effective organisation and development of sporting bodies. Employed by individual sportspersons, clubs and other groups.

Teaching - in universities and schools teaching psychology to students

Research - in universities researching their own area of speciality; and in research centres and private or public institutions, e.g. road and accident research, market research, radio and television audience research.

General - the skills developed, the understanding of human behaviour acquired and the competency with statistics gained in a psychology course, fit graduates to a wide variety of positions in the public and private sector of employment.

For more information on careers in psychology visit the Australian Psychological Society website.