Why studying psychology is about more than becoming a therapist

What can you do with a degree in psychology if you do not become a registered psychologist?

This is a question that many prospective students and their parents ask when considering higher education and its associated investment, wanting certainty that what they choose to study will offer them opportunities for a viable working life.

The question, however, points to a deep misconception about what psychology entails, often reducing it to the single version we see practised in a consulting room to diagnose and treat an individual. While this kind of clinical work remains essential, the discipline of psychology is a much broader education on how to think rigorously about one’s own and others’ mental processes and behaviour.

Psychologists and other mental health professionals perform critical work. South Africa is in desperate need of more of them, and they need more opportunities to work in both the private and public sectors. But if we judge the value of studying psychology only by the number of graduates who enter professional practice, we miss the important value that a good psychology education can and should offer.

What is psychological literacy?

The broader purpose of an education in psychology can be understood through the concept of psychological literacy, as described by Australian education and psychology scholar Jacquelyn Cranney and her colleagues. They describe psychological literacy as the capacity to apply psychology intentionally and adaptively to personal, professional and societal needs, moving the definition beyond the belief that psychology is only about treating mental illness. This definition asks a more demanding question: What can graduates do with what they have learned?

A psychologically literate graduate should be able to investigate claims about one’s own and others’ mental processes and behaviour and not just accept them. This would mean asking questions about how qualities such as wellbeing, motivation, resilience or prejudice have been defined and measured; assessing the quality of the evidence; knowing the difference between correlation and causation; considering alternative explanations; cautioning against simple generalisations; and thinking about the ethics of applying psychologically informed knowledge to individuals, groups and communities.

The value of psychology goes beyond teaching “people skills”. While good psychology education is very adept at teaching durable skills such as communication, teamwork and empathy, it also offers something more specific, which is a disciplined way of thinking about human behaviour. This combination is what makes it distinctive when compared with other disciplines that can claim to develop some of these skills.

What skills do psychology graduates develop?

This capability has already become, and will only continue to become, more important as technology fundamentally changes the workplace and the world. The strongest case for psychology in an increasingly AI-shaped economy is not that machines will never be able to mimic human interaction. We are seeing that change before our very eyes. The more important argument is that as technologies increasingly make decisions about people, we need humans who can interrogate the assumptions underlying those decisions.

In South Africa specifically, psychological literacy demands even more of us.

Behaviour in our society is deeply shaped by culture, language, history, inequality and a wide range of social contexts. An individual problem may be shaped by wider social issues, and the same behaviour can mean different things in different communities. Because much psychological theory has been developed in the West, the question is not simply to accept or reject that knowledge, but to ask questions about it. Whose experiences shaped a theory? Does it hold true across languages and cultures? How can local knowledge deepen our understanding? South African graduates should be able to challenge existing theory, as well as contribute to local knowledge production.

This way of thinking has practical consequences.

How psychology improves public policy and decision-making

If we use public policy as an example, a policy can be technically sound and still fail because it rests on weak assumptions about human behaviour. Policymakers may make faulty assumptions about people’s access to certain resources or believe that people will trust institutions they have historical reasons to distrust or experience interventions in the same way across communities.

The Gauteng E-Toll System: A case study in human behaviour

The Gauteng e-toll system is a good example of this. The problem it sought to address was that Gauteng needed a sustainable way to pay for better road infrastructure. But beyond engineering and financial modelling, the policy depended on millions of people accepting its legitimacy and fairness and therefore choosing to comply with it. Instead, opposition grew and questions around affordability, consultation and who should ultimately carry the cost arose and non-payment became widespread, with the system ultimately being abandoned after more than a decade of sustained resistance.

Had the policy been informed by a psychological literacy lens, it might have asked different questions from the outset: Do people regard the policy as fair and legitimate? What would make them willing, or unwilling, to comply? What existing levels of trust in government might shape their response? Are the financial and practical burdens experienced equally across different groups? How might people interpret the consultation process itself? And what signs would tell us early on that the policy was producing resistance rather than compliance?

The same principles apply when we are trying to understand other prevalent issues such as crime, trauma or gender-based violence. Psychology should therefore always help us to resist simple explanations for complex human problems. It should also help us to differentiate between that which is happening at the level of the individual and that which is being intensified by families, communities, organisations and other existing social systems.

This is why the question “What job will I get with a psychology degree?” requires a more nuanced answer.

Applying psychological thinking to complex social challenges

While higher education should never use vague claims about transferable skills to avoid responsibility for student employability, the assumption that a degree should map neatly onto one first job is an outdated view of the reality of today’s world of work. The better question therefore is whether students’ education will give them capabilities that remain valuable as they move across multiple roles, organisations and industries throughout their careers.

But higher education also needs to take some responsibility for the narrow way in which psychology is often understood by the public. We undersell the discipline and our graduates if we teach psychology primarily as disciplinary content and then expect graduates to figure out for themselves how that knowledge applies in the real world outside of the classroom.

Psychological literacy must be deliberately taught, practised and assessed. Students need multiple opportunities to apply psychological knowledge to ambiguous real-world problems where evidence may be incomplete, across different contexts, where ethical tensions exist and where decisions impact real people.

The Future of Psychology Education in South Africa

Higher education therefore needs to be clearer about what an education in psychology is for and ensure that students can use what they know responsibly. Instead of only asking, “Will this student become a psychologist?”, we should ask “How can we ensure that all students graduate with the confidence to apply their psychological literacy to all areas of their lives?”

At a minimum, they should be able to draw on evidence, social realities and ethical judgement to make better decisions about people.

South Africa needs more psychologists. But it also needs more policymakers, educators, entrepreneurs, designers, researchers, leaders and citizens who know how to think psychologically.

That is a much bigger ambition for psychology education than training therapists.

Learn more about SACAP’s Applied Psychology qualifications here.