Psychology is totally central to chess strategy. The most important thing is to discipline your own psyche to a certain habit of rigorous and efficient thought. But psychological strategy is also useful against opponents, and this is best seen in opening repertoire selection.
For instance I always meet 1.e4 e5 2. f4 with 2...d5, the Falkbeer Countergambit. I think this is a great strategic idea: my opponent wants to play an attacking game where she keeps the initiative at the cost of some material, and she wants me to defend. So I offer a countergambit and try to turn the tables on the presumption that my opponent is less comfortable being up a pawn but down the initiative. In the opening I do my best to disrupt what I see as my opponent's expectations. In fact I see the opening as two players not trying to make the 'best' moves, but trying to direct the game into territory where they will be the psychologically comfortable one. It's certainly different at top levels, but at the club level, that's a big strategic edge.
Against my better judgement, I actually looked at the wiki article on using psychology to win chess games. Here are a few highlights:
"Take ten moves to do what you could do in two. This makes your opponent begin to lose his caution. He finds no meaning in your last six moves, and gives up looking"
Oh yes, by all means, please take ten moves to do what you wish to accomplish in two. I'll be so confused that I won't know how to gain any sort of advantage while you're stalling.
"Use fake outs over the board. This includes not looking at the part of the board you're actually thinking about, pretending to concentrate when your opponent has forgotten to hit the clock so that he doesn't notice his time running"
Yeah, because thats how I want to win...by hoping my opponent doesn't notice his time is running. In fact, I'm not at all interested in sportsmanship. Maybe I should apply super-glue to his seat before he sits down. That way when he needs a bathroom break, he won't be able to go and I'll gain an edge.
"Older players tend to rely on their knowledge of positional chess and they play a tough opening and a tough ending. If you play a closed positional/space game they will defeat you easily. Try and open up the position and get them into a game that is all "Tactics" because this is where they break down and make mistakes in calculations or they just "miss" seeing a few threats"
Oh, I see. Older players can't handle tactics. Got it. Silly me, I've been trying to just play the best moves I can, one at a time. Little did I realize I could have short-cutted years of study and analysis by just playing "open" positions.
Good grief. Seriously, OP, if these are the sorts of tactics that are working against you or the sort of tactics you think you need to employ in order to improve, you're playing a far different game than I.
Could not have said it better.