Expert: Jean M Mahan - 1/12/2012

Question
Hi Jean Mahan,

I am currently studying psychology at a bachelor's degree level, and have started to think about what to specialize in later on.  I am still very confused about the differences between criminology and forensic psychology, and I would not know which field to pursue if I had to choose between the two.  It would be very interesting to work in a prison environment or a police department one day; which career(criminology or forensic psychology) plays a more active role in criminal profiling and studying the mind of a criminal?   It would be great to hear back from you. Thank you.

Warm Regards,

Róisín Wada

Answer
Great going into psychology. To tell the absolute truth I don't really know the diff between forensics and criminal psychology. I dumb lucked into the whole thing. However I will tell you that my work as a therapist with the prison criminals was the most rewarding period in my entire career. There was nothing as satisfying to me as really helping these men understand and turn around their lives. If you can change one life for the positive it reverberates through their whole network of family and friends and ends up making their lives, their childrens live and grandchildrens lives so much better, and even better prevents so much pain in the general public's lives. I had a dream one time when I felt I wasn't doing much good that showed me the astonishing effect of changing a handful of criminals. An analogy is to skip a stone on a lake and watch the ripple effect of that one stone's waves.

Of course helping catch a horrible criminal, a rapist, child rapist, or murderer is also of huge benefit to the public and also very satisfying. But the effect of this beyond that is not something I know about.

Basically I am telling you that I think whatever school you are going to or plan to go to should be thoroughly explored for the exact classes that offer in either of those areas. But again all degrees are nothing but book learning, useful as a starting point in a career, I called my degrees on the wall "my guaranteed pay check". It is like being a carpenter, you learn the basic techniques and types of wood from the books, putting it all together to turn out beautiful product is something else again. Hands on and keep learning from your wood (patients) makes you the specialist, the one who does the most long lasting good in this world.

And all of us, no matter what job or profession we have, either stick to the book and be ordinary (and safe as an employee, not getting fired and with almost a guaranteed advancement) or we learn, try diff methods, watch the outcome, and keep improving our work, not for the money but for the job satisfaction. I ended up with a job I loved and with a high degree of success both with my patients and with my company. I  received awards above all the others and advancements above all the others even tho my place in the pecking order was much lower than the others. Please become excellent with this method, don't ever get stuck in a rut and just be satisfied with the pay.