[iamanders]

Studying psychology can be done in different ways. One could meet people with certain psychiatric problems, one could go to a psychologist, one could study it in the intelectual way (everything from behaviour science to neuroscience).
How do you actually get to understand psychology?

[healingme4me]

Lots of time invested and reading relevant materials. Staying in the loop, so to speak. Also, conversing with other like minded individuals. Won't happen overnight.
Best of luck in your endeavor to gain knowledge in the field of psychology.

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[RisuNeko]

Doing a degree in psychology.

[RisuNeko]

Or taking a psychology class in the area you're interested in. Abnormal psych for instance.

[Compassionate1]

Psychology is such a diverse subject that it's often difficult to know where to start.

For myself, I began my informal studies by reading Sigmund Freud to better understand the construct of ego and the "self" from a psychoanalytic perspective. Once I had the basics of how we, as people, are formed within our own experiences and perception of the world I continued on the path to Anna Freud and her works with child psychoanalysis; focusing on ego and the mechanisms of defense. From Anna, I moved to her mentor, Melanie Klein and studied her works in Object Relations Theory.

I've read many others along the way; but these three were where I had formed the basis of knowledge from which I would build and branch out into other areas of human psychology. At one point it seemed as though that the more I had sought I answers the more questions I was left with, so I kept searching through journals and studies in an effort to better understand the development of various conditions and disorders... I loved learning about this stuff!
The complexity of the mind and the "why" we do the things we do as individuals has always fascinated me.

I'm now in college studying Criminal Psychology and Behaviour as a kind of pre-degree preparation for university.

[RisuNeko]

honestly freud is a load of hooey. most freudian stuff is in my opinion. His theories have been largely debunked by the psychological community. Especially the ego id superego nonsense.

The psychological community has not "debunked" psychoanalysis. Where is your evidence?

My opinion is the psychological community has embraced behaviorism and cognitive therapy, for they lend themselves to statistical methodology.

[archipelago]

There is a push for both evidenced-based and empirically-based treatments (slightly different meanings) due to mainly economic pressures and so therapies that are easier to quantify and measure statistically have been pushed forward.

That does not mean that they are in fact better or eliminate other treatments, such as psychoanalysis. In fact, there are studies that show that the actual method chosen has a rather small effect compared to other factors such as what the client brings in, placebo effects, and the relationship.

As for psychoanalysis, it is no longer a single thing or dependent on Freud. There is a body of evidence for its effectiveness. And there are also studies that show the indebtedness of other therapies to what were originally psychoanalytic ideas.

[Travelinglady]

I majored in and taught psychology. If you want to take some classes in it, then start with the beginning class. It's required to take other courses. Or get a textbook in intro psych and read it. Then see what subjects (areas) interest you the most and get books in those areas (such as Abnormal Psych, Developmental Psych, and Social Psych.)

[RisuNeko]

I don't deny that Freud has had a huge impact on the creation of other forms of mental health methodology, I'm just talking about things like: gayness being a disease, everything wrong with you is based on how your mom and dad treated you when you were a kid (hello, genetics?), and the ego id superego stuff is just not empirical in any way. It's not science. I know we wouldn't be where we are today if not for freud, but I feel like we could be much further along if somebody else better and more scientific got all the fame freud did. But you gotta start somewhere.

The history of how mental illness has been dealt with throughout time is really fascinating, that's one of the things that I really found interesting in my abnormal psych class, dating back to the humours (like black bile) and bloodletting and all that.

[Fuzzybear]