The study of mind and behavior represents links with the life sciences, the social sciences, the humanities and therapeutic domains, including both the medical specialization of psychiatry and practices of clinical and humanistic psychology. With more than fifty subfields recognized by the American Psychological Assocation for its roughly 100,000 members, psychologists may be characterized by their research methods, their focal interests or the areas in which these interests are applied; they may also combine academic research and teaching with counseling and other roles. More than 250,000 psychologists are employed nationwide. Psychology is also deeply connected to research and theory in other disciplines, including anthropology, biology, education, information theory linguistics, medicine, neurobiology and sociology. Psychoanalytic interpretations also have currency in the humanities including film studies.

In addition, psychology permeates popular discourse both in reference to specific terms from the field (including psychoanalytic jargon) and a more general concern with emotions, motivations and individual and social problems in which “psychologistic” explanations have become commonplace. This role is reinforced by the psychologist in mass culture as commentator on events and problems in radio talk shows, as news columnist or television analyst and as lead character (Spellbound, 1945; High Anxiety, 1977; Color of Nïght, 1994; The Bob Newhart Show, CBS, 1972–8). The highly popular 1990s sitcom Frasier (NBC, 1993–), for example, contrasts a radio psychiatrist as advisor with his own emotional and social problems.

American pscyhology has a strong experimental tradition dating back to the nineteenth century, encompassing modern work in sensory studies, physiological psychology, comparative studies (with animals) and cognitive studies. Cognitive sciences have become linked with innovations in computers and communications. Other formative figures in American psychology, include more philosophical functionalists like William James and John Dewey J.B. Watson was the father of behaviorism, which focused on stimulus-response models.

Psychoanalysis was bolstered in the US by refugees fleeing the Nazis, including Karen Horney, Alfred Adler and others who developed diverse discussions of the Freudian legacy. Psychoanalysis was seized upon by Hollywood as both practice and subject of countless, albeit often comic, expositions. Questions raised about Freud and the limits of his observations and interpretations in the late twentieth century divided the psychoanalytic community in painful, sometimes public ways.

The Second World War and the Cold War became a watershed, as Herman (1995) argues, in bringing clinical and therapeutic aspects to the fore in both professional and public discourses as experts in the field skyrocketed (the APA soared from 2,739 members in 1940 to 30,839 in 1970). Their work in universities and private practice included studies of personality adjustment and social psychology tackling questions like gender and sexuality, prejudice and individuality, contributing to a broader reformulation of these issues in American life. These studies are also linked to applied psychological investigations and treatments in clinical practice, counseling, education and industry.

Abnormal psychology deals specifically with questions of different knowledge of and action in the world. Developmental psychology has also become an important field.

American Psychologist, the journal of the APA, is a central journal in the field. Psychology Today, a more popular journal, also has provided information on research and issues in the field for thirty years.