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Blog posts : "Autobiographical"

PHD Autobiographical Sketch, Marriage Diversity


I am a young Korean woman educated in Japan who now lives in America and wants very much to excel in the area of psychology. I have fallen in love with California and hope to complete my graduate studies here. Since I majored in “Cultural Properties” or issues in Japan, I particularly enjoy studying the complex relationships, at once psychological and historical, that exist among various different Asian groups here in California. The greatest strength of my application to your program is that I am one of few Korean applicants who are fully fluent in Japanese as well as Korean, helping me to bridge one of the most prominent and historically bitter divides in Asia resulting from Japan’s historic occupation of your country.

I feel strongly that much of what I studied in Japan has immediate and profound relevance to the study of psychology, especially the psychology of cultural differences, barriers, and/or conflicts, particularly those that involve language. The XXXX is my first choice for graduate study because I feel that I am the best fit for your particular program. I deeply respect your commitment to seeing mental health and mental illness in socio-cultural contexts and your hearty endorsement of research and intervention that is relevant to the multiple cultures in which they are conducted. 

My application is further strengthened by my service as a Volunteer Peer Mentor at the XXXX, in XXXX , Japan (July 2008 - October 2009). I helped newly arrived international students to adjust to their new environment helping them to meet people and to learn to interact with people from many different countries all at the same time. In fact, I advised resident students on a broad range of issues, personal as well as academic, as well as helping to organize and implement international cultural exchange and recreation programs and events. I believe that this experience will help me to think creatively about the many multicultural issues facing Asian residents of California as well.

My passionate interest in psychology began during my high school days as a result of my own mental health challenges. Even though I had good grades in my classes, I began to suffer from chronic depression. It is very common in Korea for adolescents to suffer from mental illnesses due to the great amount of academic pressure that is piled upon them in a very competitive educational system. Students in Korea are often made to attend classes from 7am to 10pm, as I did, going to private schools at night. Surveys have shown that most Korean high school students sleep only 4 to 5 hours a night.

I went through a very difficult period in high school where I felt that I had lost my goals in  life and I suffered from low self-esteem. At times, I even felt that life was meaningless since we would all just die anyway. I even had thoughts about suicide. (As in Japan, our suicide rate for adolescents under pressure is alarmingly high.) Thankfully my mother convinced me to see a psychiatrist and soon I was undergoing treatment, counseling and art therapy, for my depressive disorder. At that time, I began to learn to look inside myself, observing my feelings and behavior with new, more critical eyes. Soon, I recovered from my depression as a result of intensive and highly successful treatment. My extremely positive experience in recovery set me on a road to pursuing a career in psychology.

I had a wonderful psychologist by the name of Dr. XXXX who changed my life completely for the better, helping me to see things in a much more positive light and to learn to monitor and control my feelings. I was able to see things much differently. Dr. XXXX helped me to control my feelings through reflection, critical thinking, and discipline. I began reading extensively in the area of psychology in my free time and by the time I was ready to begin college I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the area of mental health and dedicate my life to the cultivation of new ways to see the world in a more positive light through psychological discovery.

About the same time that my interest in psychology took off, my mother also began to study psychology, coinciding with her volunteer work as a counselor at a high school guiding juvenile delinquents. She told me many stories about her work that also served to deepen my interest in the power of counseling. I became immediately apparent to my mother and I both that many of these troubled juveniles were suffering from mental illnesses as a result of some type of trauma or abuse, often at the hands of their parents.

I chose to major in Cultural Properties in Japan because of my fascination with culture and the impact that it has on our psychology. I spent four years on this intriguingIsland taking courses mostly concerning ‘Cultural Heritage Conservation Science’ at XXXX University, located in Kyushu.  I learned a great deal about cultural restoration, in particular, and componential analyses of heritage. Studying culture was especially useful to me since I also served as a Counselor at the XXXX House as well, facing so many cultural issues in a fully international context.

.After my graduation, I returned to Korea and began working for a trading company. Soon, I faced another serious challenge to my mental health as I was shocked to experience a panic attack in a subway station which left me with the after effect of feeling scared when using overcrowded subways or buses, which are unavoidable in Korea. I plunged into a full immersion in the literature about panic disorders and this has helped me to become much stronger. Now, here in America, I feel I am at the optimal moment in my intellectual and emotional maturity to study in your distinguished program.

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PsyD Counseling Psychology, Mindfulness


I am applying to your competitive PsyD Program at the XXXX because I am convinced that my drive and determination will enable me to excel. I have a great passion for research in psychology, particularly in the areas of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Now 36, psychology is a career change for me, a new professional beginning. Married and divorced, I spent 10 years in the mortgage business with my family in the small California town of Visalia where I grew up. After my marriage failed, I completed my bachelor’s degree in 2 ½ years and then sold my home and moved to the city of XXXX.

I like to think of myself as a compassionate woman; and that my concern for the suffering of others is what has propelled me towards the study of psychology and the completion of both my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in this field. I have found my calling in life helping those who suffer from mental health issues and challenges. Now, I keenly look forward to continuing on in my studies, completing the terminal degree in my field at the XXXX, and attaining a cutting-edge foundation upon which I will be able to make my maximum contribution to our discipline. I am especially passionate about therapeutic initiatives centered on the concept of mindfulness, most of all with respect to its potential for evoking positive changes in brain chemistry.

I am passionately engaged with the issue of how psychology professionals might best go about helping to erase the stigma that is all too often associated with mental health services, particularly among certain ethnic groups; most notably Latinos who figure quite prominently into mental health assessments and services here in California. I am working with my Rosetta Stone for Spanish and I hope to continue to make rapid improvement in my Spanish skills so that I might eventually be able to use this language to some extent in the professional arena as well.

I became a member of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology because I am a thinker who loves to ask questions and a firm believer in the importance of balance between mind, body and soul for optimal health, studying our own past in order to prepare ourselves for the future, at the same time that we learn to savor each moment of the present. I am most fascinated with the human mind, its capabilities and limitations, and the debate between dualism and monism. At the center of my focus is the mind's ability to heal the body and the role played by spirituality.

A sense of debt that I feel to my community and nation has also helped to propel my interest in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), especially but not exclusively among our soldiers returning from combat in places like Afghanistan. The fact that I personally have no military experience or any military family members only reinforces the sense that I have of wanting to give something back to those who have sacrificed so much. For years now, I have invested a great deal of time, energy, and heartfelt reflection in the area of PTSD and I want to build a lifetime focus in this area of psychology, to practice and publish about the great challenges that PTSD represents for our society and to do everything that I personally can to respond to this challenge.

I will be finishing my Master’s Degree in December of 2014 and hope to begin studying in your program right away, in January of 2015. The focus of my Master’s Program has been in the area of Marriage and Family Therapy and I also want to remain engaged with this area as a lifetime focus. I feel strongly that mental health issues are best dealt with when one is not alone, and I feel special empathy for those who have to wrestle with mental health issues in the context of a failing marriage often aggravated by the stigma associate with mental health issues. I want to devote my life to helping each individual that comes to me for support to feel less alone in their struggle. If I could help them to save their marriage, this would be ideal.

Several years back I was struck by an image of the “Marlboro Man,” a US soldier in sustained combat in Fallujah, Iraq. He had been firing his canon for about 24 hours when the photo was taken, mud, blood spattered all over his face, a Marlboro cigarette dangling from his lips. A young man from our state of Kentucky who volunteered to go to Iraq to defend our freedoms as our government saw fit; although he sustained no major physical injuries, he would never be the same. Most importantly, his case is not at all unique; there are tens of thousands of similar cases in America. He came into the spotlight and attracted press attention to his story only because of the award winning photo. The Marlboro Man returned to Kentucky to marry his high-school sweetheart. Within a couple of years she would leave him because of his nightmares where he would sometimes half strangle her in his sleep. Alone now, he keeps smoking and suffering on full disability. The costs of PTSD to our society are staggering.

After earning my PsyD and beginning my practice, I intend to put the Marlboro Man photo on the wall in my office. I also plan to pay very close attention to the issues surrounding PTSD and substance abuse/addictions. My central, long term goal is to create my own non-profit organization to help our veterans. I have several ideas and I am confident that they will mature as I make progress under your expert guidance towards completion of the PsyD Degree at the XXXX. I have been profoundly inspired by the example set by the organization Puppies Behind Bars in New York, which rescues dogs from shelters to be trained by inmates, and then given to veterans with PTSD. I find this model to be especially inspiring because of the broad scope of those who benefit, the inmates, the animals, and especially the veterans and their families. No organization such as Puppies Behind Bars yet exists in California. In fact, here in California there is a long waiting list of veterans who need trained dogs. In addition to providing company, these dogs are trained to do things that specifically respond to the needs of the veterans who suffer from acute PTSD, such as checking the perimeters.

I am particularly passionate about the use of animals in therapy because I believe they reach places that people sometimes are just unable to go, especially when the individual is otherwise all alone. This avenue of research and practice dovetails nicely with my volunteer work with the Society for the Prevention and Cruelty of Animals. Volunteer work is in fact central to my identity and mission. I also serve as a Court Appointed Special Advocate and participate in numerous events related to the care of children.

Finally, I hope to engage professionally at some point with virtual reality tanks as a compliment to therapy. I see exposure therapy as a most promising resource, allowing the PTSD sufferer to go back and confront their trauma in a safe environment. Sometimes we need to face the monster under our bed in order to make it go away.

I thank you for considering my application to your distinguished program at the XXXX.

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