How Personal is the Statement of Purpose (Clinical Psych PhD)?

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brightbluebirds

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Hi, I am submitting applications soon for Clinical Psych PhD programs and I've gotten mixed suggestions about how personal the statement should be. I added information about my family and someone said it was too personal but another comment I got was to add anecdotes about what prompted me to choose psychology (I said a moment in one of my classes) and also anecdotes for one of my clinical experiences working with children. Before these additions, my statement of purpose was pretty straight forward. Anything would help before I start submitting. Thanks!

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Everything in your statement should circle back to your goals/interests for your career. Anecdotes are fine as long as they are at least somewhat interesting and reflect the reason for seeking further training (i.e., a dilemma or unexpected observation might prompt you to want to study a problem from a psychological standpoint, whereas having an emotional response to another person's suffering is neither necessary nor sufficient justification to pursue grad school). If you have a couple of good, brief anecdotes from recent clinical or research experiences, that's probably ideal. But there are exceptions. Let's say you grew up living in several different countries because your family moved for a parent's job, and as a result you developed an intellectual curiosity about cross-cultural psychology. Or maybe you worked as a hospital volunteer for years, and those experiences stimulated an interest in behavioral medicine. Those somewhat more personal examples would still be relevant. More dubious are stories along the lines of "my sister has battled depression all her life and I want to help her and others like her." I'm not saying that this can't be done well, but the odds are not in your favor and some faculty will see this as an "overshare." Territory to be avoided is anything in which you have a very emotional stake, and/or psychology is not the obvious, logical path for the problems you're looking to solve through your career.

Hope that helps.
 
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Everything in your statement should circle back to your goals/interests for your career. Anecdotes are fine as long as they are at least somewhat interesting and reflect the reason for seeking further training (i.e., a dilemma or unexpected observation might prompt you to want to study a problem from a psychological standpoint, whereas having an emotional response to another person's suffering is neither necessary nor sufficient justification to pursue grad school). If you have a couple of good, brief anecdotes from recent clinical or research experiences, that's probably ideal. But there are exceptions. Let's say you grew up living in several different countries because your family moved for a parent's job, and as a result you developed an intellectual curiosity about cross-cultural psychology. Or maybe you worked as a hospital volunteer for years, and those experiences stimulated an interest in behavioral medicine. Those somewhat more personal examples would still be relevant. More dubious are stories along the lines of "my sister has battled depression all her life and I want to help her and others like her." I'm not saying that this can't be done well, but the odds are not in your favor and some faculty will see this as an "overshare." Territory to be avoided is anything in which you have a very emotional stake, and/or psychology is not the obvious, logical path for the problems you're looking to solve through your career.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, I've seen this done in both good and bad ways, it's a fine line to walk to discuss the issues and problems of those close to you.

It seems like the point is that you don't want to seem like you're focused on graduate study to help that person close to you, should you choose to mention some psychopathology or related issues. It makes it seem like grad school is your way of working through your issues or that you might not be emotionally ready for the rigors of grad school, rather than being passionate about the field and career themselves, with a mature understanding of what they entail.

If you go this route, it seems to be more about conveying that your association with this person and their issues was what made you aware of clinical psychology or one of its sub-disciplines, but then your focus was more about the study of these matters in general. I've seen some people mention that they initially became interested in neuropsych because a sibling, friend, or teammate suffered a head injury through playing sports . I've seen others who mention becoming interested in health psych through a family friend or relative who was diagnosed with MS or Parkinson's. The common thread is that they just very briefly mention this as a segue to begin discussing their academic, research, and clinical credentials and how they match with the program and POI to which they are applying.

MamaPhD's example is a good case of what not to do. Talking about one's sibling's problems with depression in that manner makes the person seem too altruistic, shares too much personal information, and does not seem oriented around empirical study of psychological issues. Even talking about it loaded terms like "battled" conveys an emotional tone that you don't want to project. The only emotion you want to convey is measured passion for clinical psych in general and the specific topics/questions you are particularly interested in.

Instead, you might talk about how seeing your sister develop depression as a child or adolescent was your first encounter with mental health and spurred certain questions about pediatric mood disorders and their diagnosis and treatment. That way, it's not really about your sister or your emotional connection with her and her problems. Her issues were just the jumping off point for your scholarly interests in the field and would not have a negative impact on you as a grad student or psychologist. I know it might seem weird, especially compared to other forms of writing that are meant to convey emotion, but you need act dispassionate about these matters of people close to you if you choose to mention them at all.
 
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Big +1 for what was said above.

I've seen good disclosures and I've seen bad disclosures. If it shows an interest and focus of your career for the field without coming off as over-sharing / poor boundaries, that can be very good. It gives a sense of depth and purpose to me. It's nice to see a personal connection to make work meaningful to me. But that connection has to reflect a healthy sense of self and balance and can't just be an attempt to fix someone you know personally. More often, I've seen letters that are well done take a personal disclosure and then use that disclosure to demonstrate why they picked the courses, research experiences, and volunteer opportunities that they did to shape their (key words next) professional training to impact that disorder/disability/whatever.
 
This thread is so helpful, thank you to OP for asking and to all who replied!
 
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