Deconstructing "psychology" (I'll give you a hint, it's nothing to do with mind reading).

Before you go about learning studies and theories, you  need to know what psychology is about. If you've ever told someone you study psychology, you'll have been lucky if nobody asks you to tell them what they're thinking, or to decipher their dreams like you're Sigmund Freud. But psychology isn't about either of these things (as you're probably very aware).

Psychology can be defined as the study of behaviour and mind of humans, but that's a pretty dry definition. What else is there to say about the nature of psychology?
A good place to start is looking at the word itself.

It's formed from two words: psyche and logos. As many of you may know, the "-ology" part (from the Greek word logos) translates as "the study of", but it also translates as "a conversation about". So, what is it that we're studying, finding out about, or discussing?

"Psycho" is generally used as a colloquial abbreviation for psychopath, so are we looking at madness, or abnormality? Well partially, but abnormal psychology is just one aspect of what psychology is about.

The "psych" part of psychology is actually from the Greek word psyche. It translates roughly as mind, spirit or soul. So, we could reasonably argue that psychology is the study of the mind, spirit and soul; what it is to be human and alive. 

Psyche was part of Greek mythology, a girl whose story encompassed a great many aspects of what psychology is truly about: curiosity, love, compassion, perseverance, envy, hatred and pride. Of course, this list is not exhaustive, and if you want a more comprehensive and interesting outline of the myth of psyche, check out Todd Daniel's podcast available here.

Aside the Greek roots of the word, there's another important thing you need to know about the foundation of this discipline. Psychology is essentially derived from the lovechild between philosophy (the study of the nature of knowledge, reality and existence) and science (a systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the natural world through observation and experiment).

What psychology is meant to do is enhance our knowledge about the mind and its functions, and to study human behaviour. How we do this, why we do this, and how well we do this, is a completely different story.