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Faculties & Departments
Department of Psychology
Welcome
The Department of Psychology was established in September 1999 upon the appointment of Professor Dermot Barnes-Holmes as Head of Department. Our first intake of students for the BA Degree in Psychology was in September 2000. The Department has now grown to include ten full time members of academic staff, three executive assistants (two part-time and one full-time) and one technician. Dr Fiona Lyddy became Head of Department in July 2008.
What is Psychology?
Psychology is a broad discipline that has been defined as the systematic study of mental life and behaviour. In general terms, psychologists attempt to explain emotions, thoughts and behaviour, and to use their knowledge to help people with difficulties, and to bring about change for the better. For example, psychologists are interested in solving many practical problems, such as; How should parents deal with their child's temper tantrums? What is the best way to help someone with a fear of public speaking? How can you improve problem-solving skills? Why do some students do better in exams than others? How can we support mental health? What kind of person will make a good long-distance lorry driver?
Of course, some psychologists are interested in more academic issues, such as: Can apes learn to use human language? Are serial killers born or made? How are memories stored in the brain? Is human psychology fundamentally different from that of animals? The photograph above shows an experimental setting designed to test the effectiveness of a new psychotherapy.
If you find these types of questions interesting then you may well enjoy studying psychology. However, you should be aware that the primary purpose of an undergraduate degree is to establish objectivity, detachment and scientific rigour in the psychologists of tomorrow. An important part of this involves training in the use of controlled observation methods, experimentation and statistical analysis. Furthermore, for those wishing to become professional psychologists, the undergraduate degree represents only the first stage in a professional training that will require an additional two to six years of study or supervised experience.
Career Options for Psychologists
A psychology degree opens up a wide range of career opportunities, and new areas such as sport psychology and environmental psychology are being developed all the time. Here are just a few areas where psychology graduates are found:
- Research and teaching in institutions of higher education
- Clinical Psychologists working in health care settings
- Educational psychologists in schools and special schools
- Occupational psychologists in management, personnel, training, selection & career services
- Forensic (or criminological and legal) psychologists working in penal establishments and with young offenders
- Counselling psychologists in private practice and occupational settings
- Health psychologists
- Sports psychologists
The BA and BSc Degrees in Psychology at NUI, Maynooth aim to provide a basic grounding in Psychology as a discipline. A Postgraduate Degree is normally required before one may practise as a professional psychologist.
Modern psychology is a science of human behaviour and experience, and its study requires knowledge of scientific methods including observation, measurement, hypothesis testing, experimentation, logical inference, the use of statistics to test the significance of research findings, as well as writing and communication skills. All of these skills are readily transferable to many other professions, such as marketing, sales, community services, public policy and administration.
Research Within The Department of Psychology
Staff research activity in the Department already encompasses distinct and active research streams in the areas of Mental Health and Health Care, Language and Cognition, and Cognitive Science & Neuroscience. The Department houses a social psychology laboratory, a developmental psychology laboratory, behaviour observation equipment, a computer laboratory, a research laboratory with research carrels, some with specialist equipment including touch sensitive screens and other response recording devices, a psycho-physiology laboratory equipped with an ERPS machine, as well as an EEG, EKG, GSR and Respiration polygraph, and a postgraduate and research staff room.
The Department is located in the John Hume Building on the North Campus of NUI, Maynooth. You can reach us by telephone on ++ 353 1 708 4765. Our Fax number is ++ 353 1 708 4767. Our E-Mail address is Psychology.Dept@nuim.ie
Departmental Events & Notices
All information contained in the website is superceded by the information contained in this year's handbooks.