A community psychologist works with groups, neighbourhoods and systems rather than with individuals sitting in a consulting room, starting from a position that is unusual within psychology as a whole: that a great deal of psychological distress comes directly from circumstances, poverty, poor housing, discrimination, isolation and unsafe environments, and that treating one person at a time leaves the actual source of the distress completely untouched.
Changing conditions rather than treating symptoms
This means the day-to-day work looks quite different from most of psychology. A community psychologist might be involved in designing a service so it reaches people it currently misses, running participatory research where the community itself shapes the questions being asked, or working on advocacy and community projects that aim to change the conditions producing distress in the first place, rather than only supporting people to cope with it.
Not a route to individual therapy
Because of this focus, community psychology is a route into changing conditions at a structural level rather than a route to personal therapy, and it is generally not the professional to approach if you are looking for individual treatment. It is, however, a discipline worth knowing about for anyone interested in why some distress resists being solved one appointment at a time.