Skills You Need for Psychology

The skills needed for psychology include communication, problem-solving, research skills, observation, and math. It is also important to have interpersonal skills like empathy and trustworthiness.

When you begin studying psychology, you will need to work on improving your skills in these areas as well as learning your coursework.

This article explores some of the skills that are needed to study psychology and enter the field of psychology after graduation.

Communication

Psychology is all about people, so having strong communication skills is important. If you are interested in pursuing a future career in mental health, you will need to be able to interact with people experiencing a wide range of psychological, emotional, and social problems.

Psychologists should be able to talk to their clients in a clear, understandable way. They should be able to speak with compassion and tact and they should be active listeners. 

Even if you plan to become a research scientist, you will need to rely on your communication skills to convey information in both written and verbal form.

Research Skills

As a psychology student, you are going to be spending a tremendous amount of time doing research. This might involve performing literature reviews on different topics or collecting data for your own experiments.

Strong research skills are vital. Psychology students receive a great deal of training on topics such as research methods. Through your psychology courses, you will learn the basics of the scientific method, various research methods used in psychology, as well as how to conduct psychology experiments.

Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is an important skill for psychologists. It is used when assessing symptoms and making a diagnosis, but it is also important for developing an effective treatment plan.

Research scientists also need problem-solving skills when asking research questions and conducting experiments.

Observation

Psychologists need to have good skills of observation. The ability to notice and interpret body language, patterns of behavior, word choice, and other subtle clues can be extremely important when working with clients.

Math

Psychology students need to be able to interpret data, understand probabilities and correlations, and know how to perform a range of different statistical calculations.

Even if you have a limited background in mathematics, this doesn't mean that psychology is off-limits. During the undergraduate years, most students are required to take several math classes to fulfill both general education and program requirements. This is a great opportunity to brush up on your numeracy skills and discover how psychologists use statistics to perform research and understand data.

Interpersonal Skills

Psychologists work closely with people from all kinds of backgrounds. The ability to show empathy and to listen without judgment is extremely important when working with clients. As a psychologist, you need to be able to empathize with people with life experiences that are very different from yours, including people of other ethnicities, cultural and religious backgrounds, and gender identities.

The ability to show empathy is closely tied to trustworthiness. A client needs to feel that they can trust you with sensitive details about their personal and emotional life and that you will only use that information in the interests of their health and well-being.

Study Skills

Doing well in your psychology classes requires excellent study skills. Juggling a full course load of complex classes that require lots of reading and contain an abundance of information means that you will need to rely on stellar study habits. These skills can include such things as spacing out your study sessions and taking good class notes.

You might have already developed some great study habits in high school. However, the transition to college life sometimes makes it difficult to maintain those good habits. One way to remedy this problem is to enroll in a study skills class or look for tutoring assistance offered through your university or your school's psychology department.

Psychology can be a fun, challenging, and fascinating subject. Having the right skills can help you succeed. If you love the subject, don’t be afraid to dive in and start working on some of the skills it will take to succeed as a psychology major.