Clinical psychology programs prepare people to help patients with mental problems. Students learn to diagnose and treat disorders of the mind or emotions, or of social adjustment. They learn to work with groups and individual clients.

It is estimated that in any given year, 22 percent of American adults suffer from a mental disorder of some kind. These disorders also account for four of the ten most common causes of disability. This means that a lot of people are in distress, which also puts a lot of families through crises and leaves a lot of work undone. If you want to help people with these problems, one way to do it is as a clinical psychologist.

You may work in a counseling center, a hospital, or in a private practice. Typically you diagnose clients by interviewing them and giving them psychological tests. You provide psychotherapy for them, perhaps in groups. You design and supervise behavior modification programs. You may collaborate with physicians to design treatment programs. Or you may do research or college teaching.

You need a doctoral degree to practice in this field. This requires an average of five years of full-time study beyond the bachelor's degree (which itself usually takes four years beyond high school). Over 100 graduate programs offer degrees in clinical psychology. Some of these are at psychological institutes rather than at universities.

In grad school you study theories of personality development and mental disorders. You learn how to diagnose a client's mental state. You study the principles and procedures of psychotherapy and behavior modification. You also learn how to do research. In this part of the program you get a good mastery of statistics and experimental design, building on what you learned as an undergraduate.