Psychology is best defined by my life, most especially by my past life. I was fixated in the phallic stage of psychosexual development. My family and I always thought it was a spiritual problem and we prayed seriously about it.
The weather changed for the better when I started studying psychology at the University of Ibadan in Ibadan, Nigeria. That was how I understood the cause of what I had been experiencing and I began to wonder how Sigmund Freud discovered such a hidden fact.
Today I am a happy man and I am free from the fixation. But the fact that I am studying psychology is what makes me happier. Psychology got me out of the chains of fixation and has made me realize that most of the problems an individual faces are not rooted in the spiritual world but could be rooted in the psyche of that individual. Psychology is truly the scientific study of human and animal behavior for the purpose of making the world a better place to be.
My desire to study psychology started when I was in primary and secondary school. I always loved guessing what kind of personality type every individual I came across possessed. I also loved knowing about mysterious facts of life and wondered who and how those mysteries were unravelled. As I grew older, I discovered that the only profession that could provide me with the right answers to the lovely things I wondered about was psychology–it the driving force that geared me towards my studies.
Maya Angelou said, “Ask for what you want and be and be prepared to get it!” My dream is to be one of the world’s best clinical psychologists, one history will never forget. In the process of bringing my dream into reality, I’m faced with many challenges but “Motivational Psychology” has always kept me on point. Psychology has really helped in bringing out the best in me. I had yet to discover the positive side of myself throughout primary and secondary school. But when I started studying psychology (psychological facts and theories), I discovered that my positive side had been sleeping throughout my adolescence. When I discovered it I said to myself, “Oh! How I wish I discovered you earlier! I would’ve competed with those students that claimed to be the best and received all the prizes in primary and secondary school.” But it is never too late to compete with them.
Today, I am an undergraduate student who is among the students with the best grades in my level of study. The Humanistic Psychology teachings of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow has played a very significant role in making me among the students with the best grades in my level of study.
Psychology must always be used as an instrument for making the world of every individual a happy one. Its relevance cannot be over emphasized because of this. I believe that my name and my research will be a major topic in psychology very soon. I am optimistic about that.
Ogueji Ifeanyichukwu A.
