Practical psychology is a psychology focused on practice and focused on working with the population: engaged in educational work, providing psychological services and psychological goods to the population: books, consultations and trainings.
From this point of view, practical psychology is education, enlightenment, the service sector plus business.
Psychologists working in the field of practical psychology are practical psychologists.
Psychology, especially practical psychology, is always in shades. Sometimes it’s more pedagogy, sometimes it’s more of a philosophy of life, sometimes it’s more of a consultation or more of a psychotherapy, sometimes psychology comes to us in esoteric garb, sometimes it’s an open business: «buy it — sell it!», sometimes it’s just entertainment for those who are bored. .
Practical psychology is sometimes confused with worldly or popular psychology, but this is not entirely true: practical psychology does not necessarily pursue popularity and is often built in a completely scientific manner. Practical psychology is focused primarily on the needs of a practical plan, and not on entertainment. Books on practical psychology contain more useful than entertaining material, and therefore are in demand only by those readers who read them not for the sake of «reading», but in connection with some issue and for some business. In addition, popular psychology is written for everyone, not just educated people, and its content is usually more lightweight, less busy than the content of books on practical psychology. Popular psychology can simply be read, practical psychology needs to be mastered.
Practical psychology is different from applied psychology. They are united by the fact that both practical and applied psychology are aimed not at theory, but at practice, but it is difficult to confuse them. The fact is that applied psychology is oriented towards specialist psychologists, while practical psychology is aimed at non-specialists, but at the general public. They have a completely different language: applied psychology has a purely scientific language, while practical psychology has a normal language of everyday communication. Applied psychology is engaged in the education of professionals, practical psychology is aimed at educating people for whom it is not professional knowledge. Practical psychology relies not only on a scientific basis, but also on working metaphors that have justified themselves in practice, albeit without a scientific basis. Applied psychology tries to be stricter and not allow such liberties.
Practical psychology has a difficult relationship with science, if only because the field of practical psychology combines very different approaches and very different specialists, both those who respect science and people who are far from science. Practical psychology, working in a behavioral paradigm, relies more on a scientific basis. Psychologists working in the phenomenological paradigm rely more on the generalization and analysis of practical experience, as a result of which in some cases they are ahead of science (science is really not very nimble and often lags far behind), in other cases they leave science in completely arbitrary speculation.
There is a tendency to reduce practical psychology to psychotherapeutic practice, but this is both factually and fundamentally wrong.
Yes, many people who turn to psychologists have psychological requests that are largely psychotherapeutic in nature: “How to cope with mental pain?”, “What if you don’t want anything?” — etc. Accordingly, a significant part of practical psychology is inextricably linked with psychotherapeutic work, but is by no means reduced to it. Psychodiagnostics, psychocorrection, psychological education, psychological training, developmental psychology — all these vast areas of practical psychology are not psychotherapy.
Practical psychology is not only helping people, but also business, and its development is determined not only by the goals and values of specialists, but also by the requirements of the market. The future of practical psychology lies with a psychology that can make money. But the best psychologists will make money thinking about the long-term consequences of their work, thinking about their contribution to the preservation of people’s common sense, respect for science and trust in reason.