Clinical Psychology

further step toward unifying the behavioral and
cognitive realms. In his proposed model, Bandura
argues that expectations of personal efficacy arise
from the patient’s actual accomplishments, verbal
persuasion, vicarious experience, and physiological

states. Various forms of therapy are seen as particu-

larly productive in leading patients to an increased

belief in their personal efficacy.

Social learning theorists such as Rotter,

Bandura, and others highlighted the idea that

BOX14-4 Graduate Student Perspective: John Guerry, M. A.

John D. Guerry is currently completing a predoctoral

internship in clinical psychology at Montefiore Medical

Center in the Bronx, N.Y. He received his B.A. from

Wesleyan University, his M.A. from the University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is currently a doc-

toral candidate at UNC. His research interests include

adolescent suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injurious beha-

viors, depression, and the transactional roles that cog-

nitions and psychophysiology play within these

difficulties. After earning his degree, John hopes to

continue to combine research, clinical work, and

teaching at an academic medical center.

John shared the following insights regarding his

graduate school experience.

What got you interested in clinical psychology?

Broadly speaking, we are all life-long students of psy-

chology. In this sense, it’s difficult for me to trace the

origin of my interests to any singular moment or

experience. Throughout my formal undergraduate

coursework, volunteer experiences with clinical popu-

lations, postgraduate research assistantships, etc., I

have always been captivated by the individual and her

social context. I believe that by far our most pressing

challenges call for psychological science to be directed

towards the service of alleviating human distress and

dysfunction—whether through evidence-based clinical

work or clinically focused research.

What did you do as an undergraduate to prepare for

graduate school in clinical psychology?

Easily the most important and rewarding experience of

my undergraduate career was my work as a volunteer in

a research laboratory. The opportunity to become

directly involved in various aspects of ongoing psycho-

logical research was an essential complement to an

intensive“classroom”curriculum. By my senior year I was

eager to learn how to better operationalize my own

empirical questions; I completed an honors thesis with my

undergraduate advisor. Through this project I felt the

extraordinary satisfaction of“owning”meaningful

research. Aided unobtrusively by a superb mentor, I

directed all levels of research, including study design,

implementation and data collection, statistical analyses

of results, and manuscript preparation. These opportu-

nities proved invaluable both in terms of my developing

the necessary skills to conduct original research as well as

directly informing my decision to pursue graduate study.

What was the application process like for you?

Laborious, oftentimes overwhelming, but exhilarating

nonetheless. Looking back, I realize that in many ways

the application process was a thorough, pre-graduate

school“hazing”ritual. Whether you are an applicant

or grad student, a high premium is placed on many

parallel skills, including meticulous organization, care-

ful short- and long-term time management, constant

prioritizing, multitasking, and people skills. For me,

however, the most important part of the process was

more personal; I did a great deal of soul-searching in

order to focus my research interests and decide what I

was looking for in a graduate program.

What was the interviewing process like for you?

I thought interviews were the best part of the applica-

tion process. As intimidating as it was to share the

attention of each world-class faculty with rooms of

unbelievably qualified applicants, it was still a relief to

cease being just one application file among hundreds. It

was both humanizing and hugely informative to finally

have the opportunity to interact—both on a personal

and professional level—with prospective mentors.

Looking back, what activities or experiences were

most important in preparing you for your graduate

school program?

In general, throughout my undergraduate and post-

graduate years, the most valuable experiences were

those that gave me a firm clinical research background.

After college, I was careful to accept research assis-

tantships according to my interests and whether the

position would expose me to a broad variety of

responsibilities (e.g., data entry and analysis, manu-

script preparation, lab management, IRB correspon-

dence, etc.). In addition, the opportunity to continually

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