Book IV helps you to find ways of describing your research experience and interests that demonstrate your commitment to empirically-based treatment approaches, even if you are primarily training to become a clinical psychologist.

1. Getting the Internship You
Want:
How to write APPIC
essays that get you
noticed . . . without
completely losing your
sanity
Dr. John T. Carlsen
Your Internship Coach
Book IV: How Do I Describe My Research Experience
and Training?

2. Copyright © 2008, 2011
John T. Carlsen, Psy.D.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
EXCEPT FOR USE IN A REVIEW, THE REPRODUCTION OR USE OF THIS WORK
IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, OR OTHER MEANS,
NOW KNOWN OR HEREAFTER INVENTED, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPYING,
RECORDING, AND IN ANY INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM
IS FORBIDDEN WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE WRITER AND
PUBLISHER
PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOR ORDERING INFORMATION, CONTACT:
John T. Carlsen, Psy.D.
(773) 975-4297
DrCarlsen@PDI-online.com
www.PDI-online.com

3. Chapter I: I’m Becoming a Clinician, Not a Researcher
Chapter 1:
What If I’m Becoming a Clinician Instead of a Researcher?
The secret to writing an excellent Essay #4 is actually quite simple: You need to
describe your research experience and training in ways that show who you have
become (and are becoming) as a scholar-in-training.
If you followed the guidelines in Books I through III of this series, you already have a
solid foundation for this essay. Book I set the stage for your application packet, by
telling the story of how you became who you are today - the budding new therapist.
Book II invited you onto that stage by helping you to identify and articulate how you
naturally look at the world - and how you understand clients - using your inborn
theoretical orientation. Book III encouraged you to show the budding therapist in
action, by describing how you use individual and cultural
differences to improve your understanding of your clients
(case conceptualization) and to provide them with
appropriate, relevant treatment (clinical practice).
That is, these essays have described w ho you are as a
training therapist and demonstrated both how you
prepare for and how you actually do the work of a
therapist. Now, in Book !V, the research essay invites you
to flesh out the practical side of your professional identity
by introducing the budding scholar.
Of course, you could simply describe your masters or
dissertation research and call it a day. Or, you could list the research projects you did
while completing your bachelor’s degree in psychology and hope that your readers will
make the connections between what you studied and who you are as an applicant.
After all, this essay question consists of a single, rather straightforward, statement:
APPI 5: “Please describe your research experience and interests:
So, why would you take any more time than necessary to reflect on this question? Why
wouldn’t you give the selection committees literally what they are asking for and hope
for the best? For the same reasons that you would choose the freshest ingredients to
make your prize dish for a dinner party or take time to choose a quality fabric and check
the tailoring of your interview suit.
Copyright © 2008, 2011 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

4. 2 Chapter I: I’m Becoming a Clinician, Not a Researcher
Of course, you could simply make food for your guests or
just wear something to your interview. So, why would
you go out of your way to do something extra? Because
you want to make a distinctive impression. You know
that people with a level of sophistication can tell the
difference between something that merely meets the
requirements (nutrition and decency) and something that
exceeds them, even if they are not sure exactly how.
Because you have only one chance to make a strong
impression on each selection committee (and hope that
your application inspires them to offer you an interview),
you owe it to yourself to make sure that they will remember - and maybe even rave
about - you as a prospective intern for their program. And, you want to them to rave
even if they are not quite sure why.
Although this principle certainly applies to all internship applicants, it seems especially
relevant for graduate students from Psy.D. programs - at least those of you whose
programs do not include a strong research component in their training. This is because
internship applicants from practitioner programs often down-play their interest in
research. They say, “I’m getting a Psy.D. because I am not really interested in
research.” Then, they worry about the competition they face from Ph.D applicants
because they do not feel “scientific” enough. Or, they simply resign themselves to
applying at a lower level to less-competitive sites.
Show them Who Else You Are Capable of Becoming
Clearly, the primary focus of internship applications is to obtain clinical training.
But, the fact that you are becoming a psychologist means that you are making a
commitment to a very high level of professionalism. It means
that you will take a doctoral-level of sophistication in your
approach to your clinical work. So, you would benefit from
making sure that your applications maintain a high degree of
consistency at this level. That is, even if you do not plan to do
research in your career as a
psychologist, you want to show that
you could - and that you would provide
stiff competition for the best of your
peers in Ph.D. programs. So, you want
to make sure that you flesh out your
research experience and training in
Copyright © 2008, 2011 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

5. Chapter I: I’m Becoming a Clinician, Not a Researcher 3
ways that show not only who you are as a scholar-practitioner, but also who you might
becom e.
I use the term “might” for one very specific reason. Chances are very good that your
internship selection committee members will never find out if you actually do pursue
your stated research interests. The point is that you want to include yourself in that
very top tier of applicants who show that they can articulate their experience and
interests. Being able to describe these components in a brief, focused, and concise
essay shows not only that you can formulate coherent research interests but also how
you would formulate coherent treatm ent plans. The key is moving beyond the
minimal expectations of describing your past experience to show what you are capable
of accomplishing on a broader level as an internship applicant - and eventually as a
professional psychologist.
So, how do you ensure that your research essay will make the impression you want to
make? By uncovering and presenting your best material in a way that shows how you
getting ready to enter this profession. The next chapter shows you more specifically
how you can accomplish this goal.
Copyright © 2008, 2011 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

6. Chapter 2
Prospect for Your Personal Gold:
How to Salvage Your In-Born Talents and Gifts
from the Rubble of Graduate School
As with your other essays, your primary goal with your research essay is not only to
tell, but also to show selection committee members who you are as a scholar-in-
training and how their internship training could shape you into a sophisticated
psychologist.
As I mentioned earlier, this means that, rather than simply outlining a chronological list
of your previous research experiences and describing your masters or doctoral research,
you could choose content that shows them who you are as a budding scholar and how
research has shaped you in becoming that person. Of course, you still would benefit
from including your masters thesis and/or doctoral dissertation research; my point is
that I want you to think about what you want to communicate about yourself in w hat
you present and how you present it.
Remember your audience. As I said previously, you are writing to a committee that
consists primarily of clinical psychologists. Remember that their chief work involves
listening to, understanding, and helping people to shape the future directions of their
personal stories - through managing illness, developing coping skills, and finding
success in their work lives and their relationships. But, as doctoral-level professionals,
they probably also take a great deal of pride (and accountability) in approaching this
work from the basis of empirical studies. So, your best approach is to
tell them the story of how research has shaped your personal and
profe ssional journey so far and how various experiences have
influe nced your development as a scholar-in-training.
Unleash the Power of Story-telling
If you followed the guidelines in Book I, you will remember my premise
that story-telling is one of the strongest tools you can use in writing an
application essay because it gives your readers the chance to connect to
Copyright © 2008, 2011 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

7. Chapter II: Prospect for Your Personal Gold 5
you personally and helps you to make a memorable impression on them. Of course,
you will probably not actually tell a story in this research essay as you did in your
autobiographical essay, but you will benefit from preparing for your writing in the same
way: The more vivid your images and the more striking (specific) your examples, the
greater your success will be in describing research experiences and interests that help
you stand out from your fellow applicants. And, the more you will increase selection
committees’ interest in selecting you. In other words, as you wade into the pool of
applicants, I want you to be sure that you make a big splash...with every essay. So, be
sure to tell the story of you as the “scholar-in-training”.
How can you accomplish this challenging goal?
Find Something Worth Saying About Your Self
Where do you start to look for something worth saying about yourself? As I mentioned
earlier, your best hope for standing out from the competition of other applicants lies in
uncovering your unique qualifications and packaging them to fit with the training
offered by your chosen internship site. But, if you are like most graduate students, the
last few years of school have probably made you forget w hy you wanted to become a
psychologist - and even w hether you ever really did! You have had so many
requirements and deadlines, that your dreams probably got buried underneath all of
them or squeezed out of you along the way.
So, how can you begin the process of recovering your
original dreams and using them in this research essay to
show how qualified - and desirable - you are as an
applicant? To generate raw material for your research
essay, I invite you to start by using a method for
brainstorming that I call “Prospecting for Your Personal
Gold” to come up with useful raw material. Remember
that one of the challenges of being a successful writer is
learning to sort through and tolerate a great deal of
irrelevant material (ideas or material you might not use,
poor examples, etc.) on the way to finding your best
ideas. So, while you might want to start writing with your whatever ideas come up
first, the reality is that your best material is probably buried under or hidden in much-
less interesting or accessible memories.
If you are like many doctoral students (especially those in Psy.D. and other applied
clinical programs that do not emphasize research as much as clinical practice), you have
Copyright © 2008, 2011 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

8. 6 Chapter II: Prospect for Your Personal Gold
probably never truly developed your research potential and, maybe, never even
thought of yourself as a clinical scholar. Actually, in your rush to become a trained
clinician, you might, simply, have put up with your research classes and a masters
thesis or dissertation research to meet your academic requirements and struggled to
stay above water during the last couple of years. But, remember: Your school’s training
model does not define you as a training professional. Whether you come from a
Scholar-Practitioner, a Science-Practitioner, or a Clinical-Scientist model of training, you
can define your experiences and interests in research as explicitly as you want. That is,
you are the one who determines the level of interest you have in conducting - or simply
applying - empirical research in psychology
So, if you stop and think, you will realize that you have received
feedback about your research potential from many different
people - professors, advisors, and supervisors, not to mention
friends, classmates, family members, and partners/spouses.
While you have no doubt learned a lot, and maybe even received
some helpful suggestions, your enthusiasm and passion for this
profession might have been trampled and buried under all of that.
But, the fact is that, beneath the surface of your budding therapist
self lies a budding researcher. Even if you never actually want to
do traditional research as part of your professional work, you
probably have the mind of a great researcher. This is what I encourage you to show
selection committees through this essay by coming up with descriptions of your
research experiences and interests that show who you are as a budding professional
psychologist.
Copyright © 2008, 2011 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

9. Getting the Internship You Get the full book
W ant: (or the entire set) at:
The
How to write APPIC essays Internship Resource
that get you noticed . . . without Center Store
completely losing your sanity
Dr. John T. Carlsen
Your Internship Coach
Book IV: How Do I Describe My Research
Experience and Training?
About the book
Finally, for a generation of doctoral students who are dedicated to becoming highly-
competent psychologists but facing unprecedented competition for internship positions
comes Getting the Internship You Want, Dr. John T. Carlsen’s proven approach to
distinguishing yourself from your fellow applicants. A completely practical approach to
marketing your qualifications that not only tells you what to do, but also shows you how
to do it.