I graduate into a recession back in the early 90s as a physics major. I was deeply disappointed at the time. It turned out my degree was "too theoretical." I was unemployed for about a year. I finally got an internship in renewable energy and then went to graduate school. I also had to endure another recession in 2001. At that point the stock market crash hurt the jobs in engineering, so I've been through this twice now with periods of unemployment.
But I was fully employed in the biggest recession of 2009. This was because after experiencing it twice I learned how to survive these troubling economic periods. The best way to summarize it is to get a multi-disciplinary background in an area of demand despite a recession.
In my case, I chose to focus on healthcare. In the early 1990s I went back to college and earned an MS in biomedical engineering. Then in the late 2000s I earned a 2nd master's in public health which is designed to improve the healthcare system. Meanwhile, I developed a whole world of technical skills like programming (C#, C++, Java, HTML, XML, Visual Basic, etc) and also technical writing.
You have a strong skill right now that is on people interaction - psychology. There are a couple of things you could do. Psychology interfaces with healthcare, and some of the courses overlap. I would recommend healthcare.
Here is a list of suggestions.
http://allhealthcare.monster.com/careers/articles/3125-10-best-healthcare-jobs-with-a-masters-degree There are alternatives. If you combine your degree in psychology with information technology you could go far as a business analyst. This field requires strong people interaction skills to gather business requirements from customers. The business analyst then takes the requirements and uses verbal and written communication to work with software developers to create a software system for the customer. The business analyst is usually a person who needs to have strong people skills, which is where a background in psychology would help a lot.
To get to that level, you can try to get another degree in the computer field and market yourself as a BA. Obviously, you already spent a lot of money on the undergraduate degree. So I would recommend these possibilities.
(1) Get an AA degree part-time.
(2) Work in the service industry part-time
(3) Get an AA degree that is in demand.
(4) Use the new set of credits to get the in-demand master's degree (i.e. healthcare administration, medical informatics, health economics, accounting, etc).
When I was unemployed back in the early 90s, I wish I had gotten a quick associate's degree in x-ray technology or pharmacy technology. As a degree holder a lot of credits would have transferred. So it would have only taken a year. Then I could have gotten a job and gone to graduate school at night.
You have a lot of potential. As long as you focus on the education and growing into a job, you'll do great. It just takes patience.
Here are typical BA jobs. For education in this field, combine your psychology degree with medical infomatics and focus on healthcare jobs related to business analysis and software.
http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=300&N=0&Hf=0&NUM_PER_PAGE=30&Ntk=JobSearchRanking&Ntx=mode+matchall&AREA_CODES=&AC_COUNTRY=1525&QUICK=1&ZIPCODE=&RADIUS=64.37376&ZC_COUNTRY=0&COUNTRY=1525&STAT_PROV=0&METRO_AREA=33.78715899,-84.39164034&TRAVEL=0&TAXTERM=0&SORTSPEC=0&FRMT=0&DAYSBACK=30&LOCATION_OPTION=2&FREE_TEXT=business+analyst&WHERE= As I stated, a multi-disciplinary background is the key to surviving a recession. In your case, combine the psychology degree with healthcare or information technology. The dual background can be very powerful. The key is the "multi-disciplinary" approach.