Application Essay Prompt:

I'm a medical student who wants to get a masters degree in psychology. It's something that i've thought about a lot and coming from a place like where i come from, It's something that we luck a lot. There are a lot of people who need help when it comes to their mental health but we luck the resources and training to handle such stuff. I just want a good essay that talks about how i'm going to use the psychology to help my country , since people back home don't really take mental health seriously. Also can you add an example or an experience or so to the essay. Thank you.

As a medical student, I understand the importance of mental health.  However, I come from a country, Ghana, in which mental health is not taken very seriously.  There are few treatment centers for mental health patients, and even though there are millions of people living in my home country who could benefit from mental health services there is so little access to care that they are essentially beyond hope.  That is the unfortunate environment from which I hail.  Having spent some time in school reflecting on my home country and its needs, I have decided that one thing I can do to help is to obtain my Masters degree in psychology and return to Ghana to begin providing mental health treatment to those in need. I have thought long and hard about what would be the best way for me to contribute to my society, and this I believe is the answer.

There are a lot of people in Ghana who simply lack the resources and training needed to address mental health issues.  Health literacy in general is low, and teaching opportunities are few.  People who could benefit from various types of therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, or even art therapy, are not provided for.  I often think about how much better my country could be if it just had more people trained in psychology, ready and able to provide the services that currently are not available to any great extent.

Psychology is a field that is still developing as well, and that is something that I find to be quite refreshing and hopeful.  Considering the advances that have been made in the field since the time of Freud and Jung, I marvel at how many great minds have come together to push our understanding of psychology in so many new directions.  More and more attention, for instance, is being given to adjunct therapies like animal-assisted therapy, drama therapy or yoga therapy; more and more attention is being given to innovative solutions that focus on helping people change their lives for the better without necessarily trying to solve every single mystery of the mind that might exist.  One of the things about psychology that I feel some people back home resent is that psychologists come across to them (at least in the popular imagination) as borderline frauds, seeking to unravel the unconscious mind and probe the secrets of one’s inner being.  People back home in Ghana are not interested in such ideas generally.  However, they are a pragmatic and practical people, and were they to be shown that psychology actually has a very utilitarian side to it, one that can be applied in practical terms, in everyday life, I think they would respond in a very generous and welcoming way.  The problem back home is that people do not understand all that psychology has to offer, and I want to change that.  I want to show them that psychology can help people with addiction, it can help with relationship issues, it can help with personality disorders, it can help with family or marital strife; in short, it can help in real ways.  The thing is that it takes a focused and reflective psychologist to help people see this.

I want to be such a psychologist, and I want to bring my learning to Ghana so that I can assist people who are struggling with mental health issues yet have no understanding themselves…