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Personal Statement

 

            
             In the mid 1990s, when I was in graduate school working on my MA in psychology, at the urging of one of my professors, I began to undergo weekly Jungian analysis. The goal was to gain insight into the workings of my unconscious mind, and the vehicle was dream analysis. I was instructed to write down my dreams, and bring them to sessions. As I paid more and more attention to my dreams, I began to have more and more meaningful and interesting dreams. There was one dream that my analyst and I saw as particularly compelling and powerful, specially as it comes to my decision to pursue a career as an MFT. The description of my dream follows:.
             I was climbing a very steep stairway, which was covered with books, and was having a hard time climbing up. Slipping and sliding, I finally managed to get to the top of the stairs, and there, I saw a window, which opened to a very large, landscaped yard, the likes of which I had seen in the movies about mental asylums. There were people walking around; staff in white uniforms, and patients, some sitting on benches, and some moving slowly about. I began to look through the window with utter enthrallment and fascination, while feeling guilty and embarrassed as if I was not allowed to be there and to see what I could see.
             My analyst strongly urged me to study to become a therapist, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that being an MFT was my calling. Life, however, put my aspirations on hold. I finished the MA, taught psychology as the community college level for a few years, and now I work as a technical trainer/curriculum developer for an educational technology company. However, I never, ever, lost sight of what I wanted to do; and finally now seems to be the right time to pursue my goal of becoming a counselor.
             I was born and raised in Tehran, Iran, and lived there until I was 21 years old. I left Iran a few years after the Islamic revolution, which slowly but surely changed my way of life and everything that was familiar to me.


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