The following is a statement of purpose I wrote after flirting with the idea of returning to grad school (again) to with the hopes of ultimately being a therapist. Since I haven't posted in a while, I figured I'd share this as the external prompt certainly helped me crank something out. Still waiting on the intrinsic motivation to alight for further traditional posts.
__________
Most
simply and broadly, the social work field as I understand it exists to provide
services for those individuals and communities who seek to improve their
quality of life across any number of societal spheres. As a profession it
functions as a critical intervention against any number of complex ills that
can maladaptively plague peoples of all backgrounds. Being a field that spans many
disciplines, the syncretic nature of social work provides no shortage of entry
points many of which stand in stark contrast to the profit over principle dogma
and direction of many other domains that eschew essential human need in the
pursuit of self-serving aims and objectives.
In general
my purpose is to be of service as an agent of change; more specifically as a
psychotherapist that will most ideally and impactfully benefit peoples of typically
underserved and underrepresented communities whose direction may have been
compromised amidst the chaotic and corrosive forces that virulently affect
persons on any number of psychosocial levels. In short, there are many in need
of basic services, yet due to a confluence of factors (e.g., limited access to
and/or awareness of certain resources, or generationally entrenched and
ingrained misperceptions of the field and its directives) these services may
have gone overlooked or unaddressed altogether.
The
social problem that most concerns me undoubtedly is the untreated abscess of
mental illness that plagues society in general and minorities in particular.
Unfortunately the festering sores of injustice affect access to treatment. When
combined with deficiencies in awareness, they form a perilous coupling whose
combustion is not spontaneous but on the contrary, is painfully predictable. The
subterranean bubbling of suffering untold from both an individual and
collective level, puts minorities especially, who already bear the brunt of
many a spirit-breaking burden, at greater risk than their societal foils of
pathologized behaviors that not only cripple chances for success as it is
commonly understood, but exponentially amplify the latent potentiality for catastrophe.
The prematurely and unnecessarily truncated potential of certain life outcomes would
undoubtedly be serviced by someone whose unique set of experiences and
inclinations would translate naturally in field of social work.
After
indirectly experiencing such trauma matrilineally, it is my purpose to do what
is within me to remedy this communal ill. My maternal grandmother not only
committed suicide when my mother was in her youth, but the truth of the matter
was swept under the proverbial rug for years, and this information was withheld
from her until she was well into middle age. While the loss of a parent is
indescribably traumatic, its cover not only masked the symptoms that would rule
my mother’s own undiagnosed yet readily apparent depression in her adulthood,
but also mirrored the aforementioned opacity that renders discussions of
treatment silent amongst those who find themselves already on the outskirts of
intervention. While religiosity has been an anchor to the black community for
centuries, it also has doubled as an obstacle in the servicing of its mental
health needs. While the pulpit and prayer books have been traditional home
remedies so to speak, they are supplements to, not substitutes for clinical
mental resources that are so often regarded as signs of weakness or in the
black community especially. Moreover, if these essential dialogues are silenced
as taboos in my family, one that reflective of so many black households, it
stands to reason that similar silences echo in those like it.
As an
advocate for minority affairs and mental health the MSW will allow me to act as
a conduit, not only apprising said communities of these precious resources, but
delivering them in a manner that is commensurate and consistent with their growing
need. Moreover the distance that is maintained from the problem only serves to
maintain an equidistance form the solution. As an aspiring clinician, I want to
help close this gap. There are resources available to those who should have the
intrapersonal wherewithal to take advantage of them and should be shared with
those who may not.
Though I
strive to service communities in need via traditional community mental health
avenues, this aim is merely a reflective of the triage of tragedy. That is to
say that is it far from an insular attempt to only serve those like me, but a
rush to aid those who may need such services the most yet may be least likely
to seek them out. Though I seek to increase access to the forgotten populations,
I would be remiss and hypocritical to isolate and channel my efforts and
energies towards those with whom I may share a mere phenotypic or narrative
bond.
My main
strength as it relates to the field is my naturally sensitive, empathetic, and
intuitive nature. While in a hyper-masculinist culture these may be seen as
weaknesses, my own positionality as a subject who has been no stranger to discrimination
on a personal level and injustice on a systemic one would conversely function
as assets in a clinical setting. It is my hope that these traits may attenuate
the pain of individuals on a one-on-one level and that they may help effect
change on an institutional one in the ultimate service of something greater
than myself. My objective is to pull others as I push forward and to use my
experiences and interpersonal insight and inclinations on a broader societal
scale would be to leave a mark, no matter how faint, on the eventual uplift of
those person(s) who may need help during their journey.
While I
was raised in a middle-class black suburban household, my experiences to date
in interacting with people have been a direct effort to counterbalance the
miasmic and material shelter that was thrust upon me growing up. That is to
say, my worldview is one informed by both college and untapped knowledge.
Though I grew up in an affluent, mostly white neighborhood, I made it a point
to venture beyond the city limits and immerse myself in the affairs and goings
on of those who looked like me, but were from the other side of the tracks.
This immersive affair with experiential awareness continued as an undergraduate
and beyond to the point where my interpersonal conversance stands as a strength
of which I am most proud. Though far from readily quantifiable or observable on
paper, it could easily be argued that as nominally suggested by the field of social welfare that such social skills
are just as important as any letter grade or score may be.
While I
am acutely aware of my own identity, I am blind to difference and bound to
commonality. That is to say, my range of experiences have helped foster a sense
of oneness that elides centrifugal forces of otherness in favor or centripetal
forces of sameness. In sum, people are the driving force in the field of social
work (again as implied by its titular descriptives), and we have far more in
common than not or that is typically realized.
It is my
range of experience and relatability, grounded in an everpresent humility,
honed by countless interactions amongst the rich and the wretched (to borrow
from a phrase form famed psychiatrist Fantz Fanon), that gives me the unique
potential to bridge gaps, to inter and intra personally introduce people to
aspects of themselves and others to which they may have previously been
ignorant. That is to say specifically for instance, my comfort level at a “high”
class fundraising gala at the Waldorf=Astoria is the same as it is in the “low”
(here I use the quotation marks to question the absurdly loaded arbitrariness
of said constrastive distinctions) class ghetto of North Oakland, places I have
been countless times (as a member of the Jackie Robinson Foundation and the
Oremi mentoring program respectively). I have spent time in both circles which
has endowed me with the capacity to relate to either who may be strangers to each
other but are both common to me. (For the more visually inclined, one may
picture a Venn Diagram whose interlocking overlap between two circles is the
space I have occupied and mined for commonality.
Finally,
though I have my times of extroverted ebullience, my natural tendency towards
introversion has also endowed me with an ability to listen as opposed to simply
waiting to talk, or worse yet, not hearing altogether and to learn rapidly. Numerous
times, my friends have been nonplussed at my ability to recall the minute
details of conversations years old that bear repeating in times of counsel and
distress, and one even went to so far as to say that my ears are more like
antennae registering and recording everything from the broad to the banal. This
interpersonal fluidity, coupled with my desire to be of service as a beacon of
hope for those lost in the darkness of tribulation would serve me well as
future MSW candidate. Like most endeavors, my interest in social work is birth
by an aim and buttressed by aptitude. In my particular case, the former is
derived from a wholehearted interested in the welfare and wellbeing of others
and the want to see them both secured, and the latter is derived from years of
experience, both conventional and otherwise.
While
graduate school in general and the pursuit of an MSW is undoubtedly a rigorous
endeavor, it is an undertaking whose very rigor will most ideally yield to the
vigor that I bring to the classroom. While some time may have passed since my
foray into the ivory towers a near decade ago, critical thought knows no
physical or temporal bounds, and it is a skillset that once learned is embedded
in the psychic resources to be recalled at a moment’s notice and subjected to
the will of those who been exposed to it. My indomitable will and work ethic
will work hand in hand to not only maximize my chances for success at the
graduate level, but far beyond, as I truly believe that the diligence and
determination illustrated my by resumé, both academic and extracurricular will
help me effect and influence social change. The MSW from USC’s top tier program
will function as the breeding ground for the seeds of change to be planted to
day in hopes of reaping the shared harvest of tomorrow.
