Adolescent Psychiatrist Personal Statement

A doctoral degree combining both supervisory professional mental health counseling skills and counselor education has always been at the forefront of both my personal and professional goals. Being afforded the opportunity to pursue a doctoral degree in Counselor Education and Supervision will allow me the ability to enhance my professional competencies and achieve my set goals. My primary desire is to obtain a position as a college professor that will allow me to nurture the professional growth and maturity of future mental health professionals. Pursuing the doctoral degree will simultaneously assist in developing skillsets that will further prepare me for advanced opportunities in not only teaching but supervision and research. Additionally, I desire to devote time and research to small rural communities to establish prevention based programs that will bridge communities as it relates to mental health challenges. A PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from Capella University will afford me the opportunities to positively impact change in future professionals and the communities for which I serve.

At the same time my mental illnesses were beginning to materialize. Once I realized something was wrong and had been officially diagnosed, I began to develop and intense interest in the human mind. Last semester I took a concurrent general psychology class. By the end of the first week, I knew that there was no other profession for me. After intense research and planning, I finally made the decision to major in psychiatry. This will allow me to work in a career field that will not only hold my interest, but will provide me with an atmosphere that will satisfy my need to help others.

My goal is to pursue a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. My dream is to provide counsel and guidance to individuals, families, couples or groups of people; who are dealing with issues that affect them physically, emotionally and mentally. I would like help clients determine why they are experiencing their life challenges, develop goals and actions to resolve their issues. I would like to provide life changing advice to support & help clients overcome outstanding life situations, collaborate assessment and maintain treatment. Family and friends has consulted with me about their problems. I enjoy giving them advice that allows them to think about the decisions resolving the circumstance. With this I’m inspired to work in the

I like to smile at strangers on the street or crack jokes to lighten the mood in an awkward situation, but I realize that sometimes people need more than that to make it through the day. This is why I want to pursue a career in psychological counseling. When I started interacting with a local psychological service, I knew I had picked the correct career path. I took an advanced placement course in psychology along with a suicide prevention workshop creating further interest in the topic. Additionally, I secured a full-time temporary job at the VA Medical Center, a primary mental health facility, which allowed me to become more experienced with people in need of psychological assistance. I plan to fulfill Master's and Doctorate level degrees in both Psychology (College of Arts and Sciences) and in Counseling (College of Education) at the University of

I have recently graduated from Texas Tech University with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a minor in Addictive Disorders and Recovery Studies. I have also recently been accepted to University of Houston – Clear Lake’s Clinical Psychology Master’s program. My main areas of interest are mental health issues and substance abuse issues. Therefore, my educational and career goal is to be able to help people with these types of issues.

Society and people have always been an interest to me. My entire life has been incorporated around helping those who are not able to help themselves. I take enormous pride in being open minded and free of judgement, when it comes to interacting with individuals. At a young age I was immersed in diversity, with my mother being a physical therapist working with severely disabled children, my father was physician assistant working with the elderly and disabled veterans. This exposure, at a young age opened my world to different cultures, people, and different situations that humbled me to have a level of understanding.

Working in the psychiatric field was a choice I made at a young age. However, the profession in which I would like to work within the psychiatric field continued to evolve as I grew. Throughout my high school years, I explored the options of psychologist and therapist. As I learned more in depth about what each profession was capable of doing in the psychiatric field, I worried there was more paperwork than actual patient interaction. By the beginning of my senior year of high school, I was focused on becoming an inpatient psychiatric nurse.

“In my first internship I worked in a child welfare organization.” Jodie enjoyed working with youth and families, she wanted her concentration year to concentrate on the same population. Her supervisor recommended she try working with a different population to broaden her knowledge of the field, so Jodie was placed at Henderson Behavioral Health for her clinical year field internship. Her placement concentrated mainly on working with adults with mental illness. “I loved my placement so much, I applied for a job after I graduated. I have been with Henderson ever since.”

It is exactly 16 months since I began this great journey to clinical mental health counseling program at South University. I have gone through many theoretical and practical trainings. The impact each has had on my formation is varying and important.

Back in 2013, I joined an online Minecraft server named McBrawl. I ended up spending the next two years of my life deeply immersed in this tight-knit community. Here, I learned about video games, administrative roles, and most importantly, the mental disorders that plagued people. Due to the anonymity the internet provided, players felt more comfortable talking about their issues, as their names and faces were unknown. Thus, I listened to many of the players’ thoughts on suicide, bulimia, depression, and more.

Medicine is a career filled with many choices but it’s the fate of a person which shapes one’s goal in life by the hurdles it throws one’s way. Like most of my colleagues, I entered Medical School uncertain of specialty choice. Internal medicine is the field that I practiced early on in my career, but the field of Psychiatry always fascinated me and a traumatic personal experience forced me to realize this fact, that this interest in Psychiatry is something which I already had in my instinct.

My subsequent Research in Psychiatry at Nathan Kline Institute, have confirmed that my passion lies in alleviating suffering through reconstructing the mind, rather than in fixing the mechanics of the body. I look forward to developing the skills to transform both the mind and brain to serve my patients in a meaningful way, and I am enthusiastic to combine my interest in clinical practice with my passion for academic research to create a fulfilling career in psychiatry.

Consequently, to succeed in life we all need to develop critical thinking skills. Every occupation globally requires some form of critical thinking. More specifically, child psychiatrists are obliged to have a considerable amount of critical thinking. Child psychiatrists’ initial goal is to evaluate and provide appropriate treatment for adolescents with mental disorders and their families. With great responsibility comes great problems. Even though child psychiatrists have to do many years of schooling, they are still human and make mistakes. They are liable to commit a fallacy or use an inappropriate rhetorical device.

The unending human quest to conquer disease and the phenomenal advancements in the management of diseases has always intrigued me. As Hippocrates said, to cure the human body it is necessary to have knowledge of the whole of things. Psychiatry was the only specialty during my clinical rotation in medical school that enabled me to think about myself, about other people, and about life in general. I enjoyed learning about the realm of the mind, from mental conditions to illnesses, and learning from those people whose minds function differently than the norm. I find they often have a refreshing knack for saying things exactly how they are. Each patient is unique, and each patient has something unique to return to the psychiatrist. And they inspire me to pursue this specialty.

Part of my motivation to pursue a PhD stems from the fact that growing up I did not know that “researcher” expanded beyond beakers and chemistry experiments. After learning that populations that I am surrounded by are not frequently studied, realizing that research influences policies, and knowing that my population is constantly policed, I knew this is where I needed to be. Entering college, I thought I would leave wanting to be a Pediatric Oncologist. I love youth and I love my grandma whom I watched survive Breast Cancer and it just seemed like the logical thing for me to pursue. Since I was a child I have seen kids in my environment be told they would either be a negative statistic or a doctor. Once I got to college and through experiences with traveling, community-based work, and researching, I have realized that there are so many more ways to help people’s health than being a medical doctor.