What is a psychology degree like?

So, I've heard mixed things about the scientific/statistics orientation of Psychology degrees in the UK. What kind of approach does it take? Doesn't seem like it includes much psychoanalytic or 'depth' psychology theory, am I right?

Reply 1

Scotland Yard

Clearing and Applications Advisor, Universities Forum Helper

20

Original post by bcramer15

So, I've heard mixed things about the scientific/statistics orientation of Psychology degrees in the UK. What kind of approach does it take? Doesn't seem like it includes much psychoanalytic or 'depth' psychology theory, am I right?

Psychology has moved a lot from the days of Freud sitting in his couch and saying "Hmm, so you dreamt of snakes last night? That clearly symbolises your fear of sexual intimacy" (true story!)

It is definitely a lot more scientific these days, and it is a lot more grounded in biology, evolution, and more proper science. Freud and the psychoanalytic crowd have popped in every single module I have taken so far though, except for statistics, because they were still a dominant form well into the second half of the 20th century (as one of my lecturers told me in a mixture of awe, shock, respect and horror) and continue to be incredibly influential to this day - although more in therapy and counselling, which contrary to popular belief, is just a small bit of the course. And even in therapy and counselling, we have moved on a great deal from them and it is only briefly covered, because the psychoanalytic theory is largely unscientific and untestable (you'll only hear some detail about the actually useful bits, like repressed memories and defense mechanisms). We talk about it, but little and tangentially when dealing with other topics.

These days we like Watson, Skinner and co (the behaviourist crowd), as well as a healthy dose of cognitive science, a dash of humanism and socio-culturalism approaches to psychology, but above and beyond all, we love to link everything to biology and evolution, if possible. Sounds a bit of a mess, doesn't it? It'll make sense once you get here. There are several approaches in psychology, and you'll look into them all. Psychology is much more diverse than people realise, so you do need a lot of approaches!

And yes, we do have a lot of statistics too

Reply 2

bcramer15

OP

4

Original post by Scotland Yard

Psychology has moved a lot from the days of Freud sitting in his couch and saying "Hmm, so you dreamt of snakes last night? That clearly symbolises your fear of sexual intimacy" (true story!)

It is definitely a lot more scientific these days, and it is a lot more grounded in biology, evolution, and more proper science. Freud and the psychoanalytic crowd have popped in every single module I have taken so far though, except for statistics, because they were still a dominant form well into the second half of the 20th century (as one of my lecturers told me in a mixture of awe, shock, respect and horror) and continue to be incredibly influential to this day - although more in therapy and counselling, which contrary to popular belief, is just a small bit of the course. And even in therapy and counselling, we have moved on a great deal from them and it is only briefly covered, because the psychoanalytic theory is largely unscientific and untestable (you'll only hear some detail about the actually useful bits, like repressed memories and defense mechanisms). We talk about it, but little and tangentially when dealing with other topics.

These days we like Watson, Skinner and co (the behaviourist crowd), as well as a healthy dose of cognitive science, a dash of humanism and socio-culturalism approaches to psychology, but above and beyond all, we love to link everything to biology and evolution, if possible. Sounds a bit of a mess, doesn't it? It'll make sense once you get here. There are several approaches in psychology, and you'll look into them all. Psychology is much more diverse than people realise, so you do need a lot of approaches!

And yes, we do have a lot of statistics too

Thanks for your answer! Sounds like it's fundamentally positivist, right? Do you ever find it a little mechanistic? How are the unverifiable subjects of human experience and mind (mystical experiences, psychosis, love, etc) approached? And finally, how much and what level of statistics are we talking about?

Reply 3

Lord Asriel

11

Original post by bcramer15

Thanks for your answer! Sounds like it's fundamentally positivist, right? Do you ever find it a little mechanistic? How are the unverifiable subjects of human experience and mind (mystical experiences, psychosis, love, etc) approached? And finally, how much and what level of statistics are we talking about?

At undergrad, psychosis was often looked at using neurobiological models or as part of abnormal psychology modules (which may be called something else nowadays). We also had optional modules around things like psychology of religion and social psychology that still were positivistic in terms of rationale, measurement and observation, but also incorporated a more phenomenological/ subjective element of how these were experienced differrently. However, that tends to come more in postgraduate level courses in my experience.

Reply 4

Scotland Yard

Clearing and Applications Advisor, Universities Forum Helper

20

Original post by bcramer15

Thanks for your answer! Sounds like it's fundamentally positivist, right? Do you ever find it a little mechanistic? How are the unverifiable subjects of human experience and mind (mystical experiences, psychosis, love, etc) approached? And finally, how much and what level of statistics are we talking about?

It's more holistic than anything else, at least at my university. It's much more scientific than I expected it to be (I didn't take A level psychology) and I like that. To deal with unverifiable experiences, we often operationalise them. Take fear for example. Yes, you can study it by analysing people's responses and asking them about it, but you'll also study actually measurable changes, like heart rate changes, change in sweating, increase in adrenaline, etc, and it'll be linked to what evolutionary purpose it has.

We have a lot of statistics. A whole module dedicated to it at my university in first year, but you might also find it bunched into a research methods and statistics module at other universities. It covers mostly A level statistics but it will have some extra content - we were recently taught about pearson's R, which I don't remember cropping up in the A level stats syllabus, for example. Unlike A level stats though, we can use software to facilitate our lives. The software of choice pretty much everywhere in psychology is SPSS.

Original post by bcramer15

So, I've heard mixed things about the scientific/statistics orientation of Psychology degrees in the UK. What kind of approach does it take? Doesn't seem like it includes much psychoanalytic or 'depth' psychology theory, am I right?

Hi,

In terms of stats, most unis will have a module in first and second year, which will cover both research methods and data analysis. As above, some unis use SPSS (more of a point and click system) however a lot of unis (including Kent) are now using R, which has a full programming language. Statistics is extremely important for psychology for data analysis, and will form a significant portion of your final year project and dissertation. These new programmes can be hard to get your head around at first, but you will likely be well supported and there is also lots of helpful guidance online. I actually teach first year stats and whilst many students struggled at the beginning of term, they are definitely getting the hang of it now!! 🙂

Best of luck with everything! :smile:

Natalie
PhD Psychology student

What is a psychology degree like?

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