Essay #1: Autobiography

I began my Psy.D. program after a successful 12-year career as a teacher. With a BA in English
Literature and Secondary Education, I went on to earn a Masters in TESOL Teaching English as a Second
Language from Queens College in New York. My experience as an educator has been broad and challenging,
teaching in public, private, and parochial schools and instructing nearly every grade, from elementary school
through high school and beyond. Indeed, it was while teaching international students English at the university
level that I began to perceive my limits of being a teacher.
For one thing, there was no setting or level I had not applied myself to, and it seemed as if there were no
further challenges. Knowing that I am a people person, I came to the realization that I needed different, better
tools to help my students with learning difficulties, family issues, or conduct concerns that arose
Beyond the cultural differences I was integrating, I wanted to know what makes these people who they
are. What thoughts, what learned behavior, and what emotional landscape are they bringing to this foreign
environment and the choices they have to make? This interest quickly broadened and morphed into an urgent
desire to understand people, to understand their psychological make-up to help them.
It was a huge decision to return to school. I have a wonderful wife, three terrific children, and a serious
mortgage. With a returning-student background, I was thrilled to be accepted at my graduate program, and I am
proud to have successfully completed the bulk of the academic work. My supervision references speak highly of
my clinical skills and my professionalism. I get very excited about applying what I have learned, and that work
makes me eager to see my skills increase, so my sense of excitement and accomplishment will as well.
Even though I am a non-traditional student, I have a warm relationship with my colleagues. I think
sometimes they are incredulous about how I manage the never-ending lists of tasks that assail us daily, weekly,
and monthly while commuting from Baltimore, driving carpools, monitoring homework, and packing lunches
among other family jobs I share with my full-time physical therapist wife.
To be honest, time management is a constant challenge that I have learned to manage with the assistance
of online instruments and my supervisors. For instance, I use online calendars and text alerts to arrange my
assignments, meetings, or interviews. I may have to use external tools to keep myself on track, but everybody,

everywhere, struggles with something everyday, and my efforts to meet these demands have made me less
judgmental of others and their challenges. This is an additional opportunity for me to view people as
individuals.
I have worked hard to get to this point. I am fascinated by my studies, I have an easy rapport with
people/patients, and I am eager to build my skills on the job so I can be an empathic and efficient therapist. I
am not your usual candidate, but I have a track record of diligently and successfully pursuing my goals.
Essay #2 Theoretical Orientation
From my graduate school study of the four main schools of theoretical orientations and my semester
studying integrative therapies, the practice of cognitive-behavioral therapy is the one with which I connect
most. It is the interpretation of the eventnot the event itselfthat results in the consequent emotion, feeling,
and/or behavior.
Sitting across from clients who have endured trauma or abuse of any kind, I cannot help but feel their
sadness. But it is not enough for me to help them arrive at a world where they no longer feel this pain; I desire
also to teach them to create realities wherein this pain no longer exists outside my office. CBT's combination of
empathic listening and self-exploration with evidence-based practice and relatively short-term treatment covers
what transpires when I am in session. To illustrate how this theory blends with my practice, I present my client
"Max," a 16-year-old African-American natal female/transgender male who suffered from depression.
According to Judith Beck (2011), the therapeutic process involves teaching patients how to monitor their
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, with the ultimate goal of giving them skills to interrupt or modify their
thinking patterns. Therefore, the therapeutic goal was to help Max decrease his level of depression by helping
him learn how to replace the negative interpretations of his thoughts with those more adaptive. This produced
Max's evaluating his cognitions as scientists would their hypotheses and a resultant reduction in emotional
suffering.
Though ultimately I aspire to practice briefly, not every patient is a perfect candidate for it, nor does
everyone desire it. To that end, I prefer the therapists version of the adage many synagogues have written on
their walls reminding supplicants that they are in Gods presence: Know before Whom you stand;" therapists

should know before whom they sit. My clients are my boss, and what they want and need is determined by our
collaboration. However, it is my position to challenge them and lead them to delve into difficult waters they
may not wish to tread. By disclosing certain components of my life and/or relating clients to icons of popular
culture, I help them understand that we all encounter certain circumstances in life, but we are not victims
thereof; we are what we choose to become. I encourage my clients to assume responsibility for how they choose
to live in the world. I seek to broaden the definition of mental illness to where the mere naming of a
phenomenon does not create it. Instead of calling it depression or anxiety or schizophrenia, we should see
suffering and determine how best to alleviate it.
As Max was my first encounter with a transgender client, supervision helped me process my reactions,
prepare for future sessions, expand my worldview, and improve my cultural competence. Internship supervision
will do the same, as I have not seen it all and certainly not treated all.
Essay #3: Diversity
Everyone sees visible distinctions among races and ethnicities, so I easily comprehend that the world
treats majority and minority groups unequally. However, hidden diversity componentssexual orientation,
gender identification, and disability, for exampleare even more confusing, especially to one whose cultural
identity is in the majority.
It was not until my first diversity class and its discussion on power that I was provided a stark realization
that I am in a position of privilege. This awareness, though, only became real with my first therapy externship,
when I treated a transgender client.
I had worked with those different from me, from openly gay men and bisexual women; to devout
Catholics; to individuals with muscular dystrophy, confined to wheelchairs; but I had never encountered
someone like this. Max was transferred to me for help with depression and anxiety. I established rapport easily,
but I did not appreciate to what extent, until he told me in our second session that those mental illnesses were
not plaguing him as much as his secret was.
This 15-year-old, Jamaican-American natal female identified as male. I asked him how it was to share
this previously unrevealed information with someone so unlike him, and he admitted it felt strange. I hold

traditionally conservative beliefs, yet I maintained professionalism throughout, by keeping an open mind and
using my prior training. We finished the session, and I had managed to do just what my Sue and Sue (2013)
textbooks had advised; I had brought up privilege in therapy!
As we proceeded in therapy, I had some difficulty honoring our differences, and I sought the help of my
supervisor from whom I learned that I could attempt to provide equal access to care, regardless of whom my
clients were. She also reminded me that I am still training to become a psychologist and beginning to know my
limits and biases. Continuing to treat clients who present with issues outside my comfort zone, who identify
with a culture vastly different than mine, and who have considerably less privilege, are the ways I plan to
address and improve them.
Similar to the aforementioned experience, I intend to use supervision during internship to help
conceptualize cases more precisely, taking culture into consideration in order not to diagnose what may merely
be socialized and adaptive behavior. Further, I plan on attending conferences or seminars on how to interpret
assessment data accurately so as not to overpathologize or find mental illness where there is none. Finally, to
ensure that a future world exists wherein people are judged by the content of their character, I will continue to
advocate for the value of multiculturalism.
Essay #4: Research
Having worked as a teacher in a variety of settings, I decided to seek greater challenges. I thus chose to
study psychology to help people with more basic issues than merely imparting new material. My primary
interest was and remains in psychotherapy and consulting, and I viewed psychological research mainly as an
academic approach to the field that I had to master for my studies.
But then I started administering assessments and discovered that they could reveal much about my
patients. Inventories and scales and systems showed the presence or absence of psychologically malignant
components. My excitement grew. I looked into everything I found about these tests and saw how the brain is
fascinating from a new angle. I found projectives, those that expose underlying patient attitudes, to be so useful.
Working with teenagers in my clinical placement, I saw that their drawings revealed more than their words.

This beneficial and exciting experience with research prodded me to reassess its value in how I want to
practice. Test research can make me a better clinician; understanding research results can improve therapy. Now
I am eager to understand and demonstrate, through research, if and how short-term therapy can reduce psychic
distress and produce lasting results quickly.
Thus, my dissertation inquires into the process by which a specific short-term therapy, known as
Contextual Therapysimilar in name only to Boszormenyi-Nagy's version family therapyfocuses treatment
on uncovering the unexamined assumptions that underlie what the client says. This therapy is based on the
theory that when clients can articulate their therapy goals, they will be achieved when they discover the
misunderstandings that propagate their problems. The theory of Contextual Therapy focuses on patients having
everything necessary to reach their therapy goals even if they do not yet see the possibility.
In my dissertation, I want to show how techniques for mourning losses can be incorporated more often
into standard psychotherapy. For example, this therapy considers symptoms (e.g., depressive, anxious) as
solutions, or alternatives, to dealing with a loss, so helping clients honor and grieve these injustices or injuries
may help decrease their suffering. I intend to base my research on the literature of Watzlawick et al. (2011) and
Weakland et al. (1982). I have met the psychologist who practices this brief form of therapy and will be able,
with his and his patients permission, to review case studies. I plan to create a scale to measure results from
actual case studies. I want to study this specific therapy to ascertain its usefulness and effectiveness:

What are the basic components of the theory?

Can therapy quickly disrupt clients assumptions and create new realities?
Can psychological distress be removed in severely short time periods?
Are the newly created realities sustained over time?

I will have completed the defense of my dissertation on by November 2015, and I plan to start collecting
data in January. If my dissertation has significant findings, it is my hope that my dissertation will be a first step
toward disseminating this short-term therapy to mental health practitioners worldwide.