Family therapy postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

My psychology degree taught me to look at individuals, and my final-year project taught me why that is not always enough. I interviewed six adults about how their families had made decisions regarding an ageing parent, expecting to hear about individual attitudes to caring. What I actually transcribed were conversations about position: who had always been the one who organised things, who had moved away, whose opinion was quietly treated as final. One participant described the same argument recurring in different forms across twenty years. Analysing those transcripts thematically, I found myself reaching for ideas about pattern and role rather than personality, and my supervisor suggested I read around systemic thinking. That reading is the reason I am applying for postgraduate training in family therapy.

Since then I have worked through several texts independently, including Rudi Dallos and Ros Draper's introduction to family therapy, which helped me understand how the field moved from viewing families as systems to be corrected towards more collaborative, conversational approaches. Salvador Minuchin's writing on structure and boundaries gave me a vocabulary for things I had noticed but could not name. I have also been interested in critiques of early models, particularly concerns that they underplayed gender, power and the wider social context in which families live. I want formal training partly because reading alone leaves me able to describe ideas but not to use them carefully or ethically.

My work as a learning support assistant in a secondary school has shaped how I think about this. I support a small group of Year 8 and 9 students, several of whom have complex home circumstances. In meetings with parents and carers I have watched how much difference it makes when a teacher asks what the family has already tried, rather than telling them what to do. I have learned to sit with a distressed student without rushing to solve anything, to be honest about the limits of my role, and to pass concerns on promptly and accurately. I also see how easily a young person becomes the identified problem when the difficulty is shared across a household. I do not treat this as therapeutic experience, but it has taught me punctuality, confidentiality, record-keeping and the discipline of working within a team.

Alongside this I have spent two years helping my grandmother, who lives twenty minutes away, with medical appointments, forms and shopping. Negotiating with my aunts about who does what has been an ordinary, sometimes tedious education in family communication, and a useful reminder that I am inside a system too, not observing one. An introductory evening course in counselling skills gave me my first structured practice in listening, and some blunt feedback about how often I reassured people instead of staying curious. Singing in a community choir is unrelated to any of this, but it keeps me steady and has taught me something about listening to how parts fit together.

I am applying now because I want supervised clinical practice, a sound grounding in systemic theory and research, and the personal and professional development work that this training involves. I expect to find reflecting on my own family background demanding. I am realistic about beginning slowly, working under close supervision and being questioned about my assumptions, and I am prepared to commit several years to becoming a competent and accountable practitioner.

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