Saturday, August 7, 2010

Forensic Psychology

Forensic psychology was bought into existence by William Stern in around 1901who himself was one of the greatest Psychologist. Hugo Musterberg is regarded as the first forensic psychologist. However, psychology was first applied to law enforcement in 1961 by Lewis Terman. The demand for forensic psychologist has increased rapidly over the past and currently around 2.000 psychologists are working for the American Psychology - Law society.

If you have developed a interest in forensic psychology then you are required to take psychology and criminal justice at the core of your academic studies. As there are not many universities which are offering forensic psychology degree therefore you can also go for a social, criminal investigation, development psychology and clinical degree. These will also help you get prepared to pursue a career or specialize in forensic psychology. You might as well go for some top accredited online universities as they might be offering online degree in forensic psychology.

Forensic psychology is further divided into:

o Development

o Cognitive

o Clinical forensic psychology

o Criminal investigation

As a criminal psychologist your work will be to bring together and relate psychology to criminal justice. Usually people get confused between forensic psychology and forensic science. They might sound similar but are quite different.

Being a forensic psychologist you will be required to immerse your self in the case. Studying the pattern or reasons behind it and applying psychological laws to figure out the cause behind that crime. Some frequent cases that you might come across with being a forensic psychologist will be:

o Was he forced to do so?

o Is he mentally ill??

o Was the crime performed because of excess of alcohol?

Some time people commit crime without having the intention to do so. A forensic psychologist studies the various aspects behind it. People commit crimes out of fear or they could be mentally ill. In that case they might not be referred at guilty.

You can work with the police or help selecting the jury. The job of a forensic psychologist revolves around a lot. You will always have something good and different to try your hands at.

The career of a forensic psychologist has many benefits. You have many subfields options through out your life as well as your environment keeps changing with the people you work with for instance you can be working in a prison or the juvenile offenders. For some people Self esteem or job satisfaction are the most important things therefore when you help someone it is very satisfying. You will be in one way or another very beneficial to the society.

Although a career in Forensic Science has many attractions but it has its bad side as well which you should consider before taking it up as a career.

You will be required to study through out your career. The education will be in form of conferences or seminar which you are bound to attend. It is a very stressful job and often you are not paid much in compare to the hard work you do or the time your serve. Plus there is always a risk involve as you might end up working with the police as a forensic psychologist and will get to deal it violent culprits. As every profession has it pros and cons so does this one. Though if you think you capable of getting along with all these drawbacks then it is advisable that you do pursue your career in Forensic psychology.

The career opportunities are very bright in this field as the need of forensic psychologist will never fade away. You should be hardworking and have the potential to allocate your self to your job if you are willing to practice as a psychologist. As your job is going to be very stressing and exhausting. Despite the fact that you will not get the compensation of devoting your energy and time in your work in form of money but you will get the pleasure of making an immense difference in an individual's life. Eventually with the passage of time you might even make the society a better place to live which itself is a big achievement.

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