Psychology

[chelsay13]

Okay, so, I'm just a freshman in highschool, but my school kind of makes up figure out what we what to do in life later on so we can choose our classes. I've already chosen my classes to fit around art, psychology, and computer classes [as elective of course]. I have a huge interest in abnormal psychological disorders and illnesses. I'd love to be either a therapist or psychologist. What I want to know is, can you even get a job as a therapist/psychologist on a 4 year degree or do you need 8 years?

[Antares]

Uhh, you can become an actual psychologist with a 4 year degree.
You can get a lot of jobs with that 4 year degree however, if you want to be a type of psychologist that diagnoses and prescribes meds, you need to be a doctor and that would require additional schooling.

I took psych earlier this year and it seems like a very interesting field. Also there are many types of psychological areas as far as careers go. Lots of oppurtunities :)

[Dirty Jersey]

Psychology is an awesome class. The things we talk about are very interesting.
I am planning on taking some sort of psychology corse in college and I think this highschool class is a great start.

[INFERNO]

I'm in my 3rd year, 2nd semester doing a double major biology and psychology, and psychology is a very interesting field. I never took psychology at a high-school level so if you do, it probably could help you out in 1st year university psychology, although I got an A (or A+ depending how you define it) even without high-school psychology.

I found that in one of my 2nd year courses, in neuropsychology (which is also offered as a 3rd year one but I'll have to take it along with other 3rd year ones next year..grrr) deals with an area of abnormal psychology that is not mentioned in the DSM system anywhere, although it also can involve the DSM disorders. I also did a 3rd year course of forensic psychology and some of it dealt with abnormal psychology. For example, one disorder from neuropsychology is Gerstmann Syndrome, where due to left parietal lesions, a patient is unable to know left from right, have finger agnosia, acalculia and agraphia. Another one, Kluver-Bucy Syndrome, where due to bilateral temporal lesions, a patient has hypersexuality, excessive oral behavior and visual agnosia.

So it depends on what fields you're also interested in. If you like sociology, there's social psychology, if you like biology there's biological psychology which includes neuropsychology, if you like law there's forensic psychology and so forth, all of which involve abnormal psychology.

To be a therapist, you need 4-years of university and possibly further qualifications. To be a psychologist, you can either get a PhD or PsyD, although you cannot prescribe medications, however, this is a huge controversy and New Mexico and Louisiana do allow psychologists who lack a M.D. to prescribe medications.

[Asylum]

zomg i love AP psycology :) good luck have fun with it. and 4 years, but you don't get piad as much. eight years, gets you a nice salary.

[Sapphire]

I don't know about the USA but here in the UK, you need an undergraduate degree (3/4 years) and a postgraduate degree (3 years) to become a psychologist in any field.

[chelsay13]

Thanks for all the help everyone :)
You defiantly answered my question!