Sigaba

If you select a work that is highly specialized (which I don't know if I'd recommend based upon my own experiences with a similar review), please make sure that your review explains why the work is relevant to the overall concerns of the profession. Demonstrate that you understand that a "historian is a historian is a historian."
To dovetail with @psstein's caution against using a controversial work, please keep in mind that some fields and methods of analysis are also controversial. Reviewing an important biography of a political/military figure that makes use of neglected primary source materials and provides new insights into the subject's life and times may get the eyes of social historians rolling.

A recent book in your field of interest that received overall positive reviews is a good place to start. I would strongly advise against any controversial books.

...you encounter an interface that asks for exact start and end dates for schools you've attended and jobs you've held.

It's an option at every program I know. I wouldn't go into a PhD program thinking about it, however.
I took the MA and ran because of two major reasons:
1) I was thoroughly and completely done with academia, from the institutional structures to more personal areas.
2) I saw far too many colleagues (working in areas similar to my own) having trouble finding any type of permanent employment. Many of them had fascinating dissertations, several publications, awards, and good teaching records. They couldn't find secure employment.
I was the second person in my cohort to leave the program. Two more have followed.

I disagree. 
The fact that there is no record or that you learned your lesson is not the point of the question in the application. 
I would say "yes," explain, and in that explanation simply say that the record was erased not without your own effort. Use that space to your advantage. 

If there is a section in which I can fill in information, I do. There is no harm in filling it out, but there could possibly be harm in not filling it out. Better safe than sorry, in my opinion.

Have you considered the University of Texas at Austin?

If you can stand withering heat, debilitating cedar pollen, grackles, and a research library shaped like the Lone Star State, you may find what you're looking for in Phillipa Levine <<link>>. 
The master's program includes a thesis option and a report option.

In the humanities, it may be field and program specific. (Also, in history, describing approaches to subject areas is a subtle way to name names.)

This may be field-specific - in psychology, at least at the PhD level (and often also at the Masters level), we are required to list exactly which PI we are applying to work with and how we fit in with that exact lab. It is expected that applicants will have done the footwork in advance and not waste time and $$$ attempting to apply to PIs who are not taking applicants for that year. Also, PhD (and hopefully Masters!) applicants are highly encouraged to actively reach out to current and alumni lab members before submititng an application, to check for exactly those kinds of personality quirks or concerns.
Other fields may not want that much specificity

FWIW, a usable summary of object relations theory can be found in Freud and Beyond . Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory goes into greater detail. 

I did a field in psychohistory/psychoanalytic theory. I was taught by a psychoanalyst who was a training analyst. From a historical standpoint, one can understand why it happens to this day. But, as a layperson, I share your concern. As the saying goes, when all one has is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
 

I don't think so. Depending on the program, it can be a plus to express interests in evidence-based approaches, e.g., CBT/DBT/ACT. It may help if you can figure out the practicum opportunities and what are predominantly used in these available practicums or by the practicum supervisors (for example, if you say you want exposure to everything but the program only does CBT, then they may (mis)perceive you as a bad fit since they don't have the training opportunities that would meet your needs.)
In applying to graduate school, I think it would be unreasonable to demand applicants know all the potential theoretical orientations or treatment modalities (TBH, I am not sure I feel confident about all this as an internship applicant). If they do ask about it, you can always just give some prepared answers... CBT would be a safe bet. In no ways are you bound by your answers throughout graduate school or throughout your career... 
P.s. this is my first time hearing of "object reaction theorist"...

@4everstudent writing with a word budget is hard. However, you may have more to work with than you realize. Consider the following. A double spaced page with one inch margin will have about 250 words and take two minutes to read aloud. So a 500 word SOP is basically the script for a four minute "elevator speech" for convincing your audience that you'd make a good addition to a program and to a department in the near term and to the historical profession in the future. 
The following paragraph has 48 words.
Imagine yourself listening to yourself talk about your aspirations for graduate school and beyond. What are the essential pieces of information that must remain? What elements would you like to keep, but don't necessarily need? What words simply don't belong? Are there ways to tell "the story" better? 
The following revised paragraph has 28 words.
Explain how the program will help you become a historian who will advance historiographical debates and serve the profession. Keep only essential sentences and words. Cut everything else.
[If you have Netflix, consider watching The West Wing, season 2, episode 9 for inspiration. The episode is ostensibly about NASA. It's also about the power of the well-written word.)

When you start taking graduate level classes in a history department, you will have professors who can summarize 800-page books in one sentence. Some will add a sentence like "this book could have been an article."
Is staying under a word limit about counting beans? Or is it about being concise in a discipline in which decision-makers increasingly value brevity? "Sometimes less is more," is how an Americanist who has an award named after him put it to me.

When you start taking graduate level classes in a history department, you will have professors who can summarize 800-page books in one sentence. Some will add a sentence like "this book could have been an article."
Is staying under a word limit about counting beans? Or is it about being concise in a discipline in which decision-makers increasingly value brevity? "Sometimes less is more," is how an Americanist who has an award named after him put it to me.

When you start taking graduate level classes in a history department, you will have professors who can summarize 800-page books in one sentence. Some will add a sentence like "this book could have been an article."
Is staying under a word limit about counting beans? Or is it about being concise in a discipline in which decision-makers increasingly value brevity? "Sometimes less is more," is how an Americanist who has an award named after him put it to me.

@4everstudent writing with a word budget is hard. However, you may have more to work with than you realize. Consider the following. A double spaced page with one inch margin will have about 250 words and take two minutes to read aloud. So a 500 word SOP is basically the script for a four minute "elevator speech" for convincing your audience that you'd make a good addition to a program and to a department in the near term and to the historical profession in the future. 
The following paragraph has 48 words.
Imagine yourself listening to yourself talk about your aspirations for graduate school and beyond. What are the essential pieces of information that must remain? What elements would you like to keep, but don't necessarily need? What words simply don't belong? Are there ways to tell "the story" better? 
The following revised paragraph has 28 words.
Explain how the program will help you become a historian who will advance historiographical debates and serve the profession. Keep only essential sentences and words. Cut everything else.
[If you have Netflix, consider watching The West Wing, season 2, episode 9 for inspiration. The episode is ostensibly about NASA. It's also about the power of the well-written word.)

@4everstudent writing with a word budget is hard. However, you may have more to work with than you realize. Consider the following. A double spaced page with one inch margin will have about 250 words and take two minutes to read aloud. So a 500 word SOP is basically the script for a four minute "elevator speech" for convincing your audience that you'd make a good addition to a program and to a department in the near term and to the historical profession in the future. 
The following paragraph has 48 words.
Imagine yourself listening to yourself talk about your aspirations for graduate school and beyond. What are the essential pieces of information that must remain? What elements would you like to keep, but don't necessarily need? What words simply don't belong? Are there ways to tell "the story" better? 
The following revised paragraph has 28 words.
Explain how the program will help you become a historian who will advance historiographical debates and serve the profession. Keep only essential sentences and words. Cut everything else.
[If you have Netflix, consider watching The West Wing, season 2, episode 9 for inspiration. The episode is ostensibly about NASA. It's also about the power of the well-written word.)

I recommend you find a way to cut your SOP to the word limit. Find ways to reduce the use of prepositional phrases, streamline verbs by cutting participles and the use of the passive voice, and cut sentences to the bone.
You will never know if an admissions committee puts you in the "no" pile for "failure to follow simple instructions," or to lower the ranking of your application materials in other ways.
Please take a close look at your frame of mind during this process. In a handful of posts, you've indicated a preference for finding shortcuts by not taking the GRE, by not searching for information on how to phrase a self-introductory note to professors, by applying to "safety schools," by picking programs using a controversial definition of "fit," and now by disregarding instructions on word limits. To me, you're sending a mixed message about how hard you're willing to work as a graduate student.
IME, professional academic historians are very perceptive when it comes to reading between the lines, and, when among themselves, tend to speak candidly. It's a "buyers' market" when it comes to applying to history graduate programs. Do what you can to put your best foot forward in your use of the written word. Do not give readers a "wait a minute" moment. They may use that moment to move on to the next applicant.

I recommend you find a way to cut your SOP to the word limit. Find ways to reduce the use of prepositional phrases, streamline verbs by cutting participles and the use of the passive voice, and cut sentences to the bone.
You will never know if an admissions committee puts you in the "no" pile for "failure to follow simple instructions," or to lower the ranking of your application materials in other ways.
Please take a close look at your frame of mind during this process. In a handful of posts, you've indicated a preference for finding shortcuts by not taking the GRE, by not searching for information on how to phrase a self-introductory note to professors, by applying to "safety schools," by picking programs using a controversial definition of "fit," and now by disregarding instructions on word limits. To me, you're sending a mixed message about how hard you're willing to work as a graduate student.
IME, professional academic historians are very perceptive when it comes to reading between the lines, and, when among themselves, tend to speak candidly. It's a "buyers' market" when it comes to applying to history graduate programs. Do what you can to put your best foot forward in your use of the written word. Do not give readers a "wait a minute" moment. They may use that moment to move on to the next applicant.

Hi, @OutsideAgitator. ICYMI, this topic was discussed earlier in this thread.
Something to keep in mind. If you're going "to wait until the last minute" and ask questions without having first done some research on your own, you're going to send the wrong message.

MOO, you knowing that you're one of x aspiring graduate students for a cohort of y admitted students doesn't really help you. If you're one student in a pool of two applicants for one spot, it doesn't mean that you have a one in two chance of admissions. All things are not equal when admissions committees determine who will best fit into a program. There will be stuff going on behind the curtain beyond your control, maybe even beyond your potential advisor's.

I suggest that you ask questions about your process, not theirs. Formulate questions that will enable you to put your best effort into your application materials. If you focus on your effort, you will gain confidence from knowing that you did your absolute best under the circumstances.

Good luck! You will do excellently. It never hurts to read up on the professor and have some general knowledge about their work. Overall, just try to have a stimulating, genuine conversation. 

IRT your SOP, I recommend that you keep your discussion of your GPA concise. You had a medical issue which you have addressed. Before you addressed the issue, your GPA was x (overall), since, your GPA is y (overall). I would not disclose the medical issue. One never knows if a department has just gone through a difficult experience with empathy and professionalism but is now thinking "Let's not do that again, at least for a while...!"
Similarly, I recommend that you not go into the details of why you changed from discipline to discipline unless you can develop a cohesive narrative that demonstrates intellectual growth towards psychology as a profession. This is not a suggestion to write a "Every since I was a ..." essay. I am suggesting that you tell the story of a serious minded student finding important questions and issues that can best be addressed in a psychology graduate program.
I would hit the mute button when it comes to describing your feelings about your past performance and your perceived inadequacies. To paraphrase a DGS who returned a SOP, "write it without the angst."

Question: Is there an opportunity to participate in your department's honors program for undergraduates?

·       
A few weeks ago, I was asked to talk to first-year M.A. students about the Ph.D. application process. I prepared a list of what I figure to be key elements, and I figure it might be useful to many on GC who are preparing to go down this path as well. I'm quite certain that some of these points are purely subjective and open to discussion / debate, but having gone through the process a couple of times now, these items ring true based on my experiences and observations.

----------------

Others have surely told you about the state of the industry, so I’m just going to assume that you already know the “there are no jobs” spiel.
·        Others have also surely told you about how relatively difficult it is to get into a Ph.D. program—I have yet to hear of a program that admits over 10% of applicants.
o   Because of this, if you are committed to applying to Ph.D. programs, I strongly recommend considering applying to at least ten. Even though merit is a critical part of determining who gets in, there is a very real element of “luck of the draw” which pure numbers will help to mitigate.
·        With that in mind, NOW is a good time to get started on your program research
·        Your first consideration when entering the process should be to determine what era you would like to study, and ideally a general sense of methodologies you want to employ. These elements will be reflected in the two most important components of your application: the Statement of Purpose (or SoP), and your Writing Sample (WS).
·        Some basics:
 
o   The SoP and WS should ideally work together
o   When thinking about potential areas of study, avoid proposing transatlantic or transhistorical concepts: admissions committees are still very much set up by period, and your application should be easily sorted into a field group (i.e. you’re clearly a Romanticist, or you’re clearly a 20th century Americanist).
o   GRE scores, GPA, and other elements are important, but remember that the things you can control the most at this stage are the WS and SoP.
o   Given the importance of these two documents, you will want to get as many eyes on them as possible as soon as possible.
§  My SoP and WS were read and commented on by at least five professors and several fellow students, and ultimately went through at least six rounds of revision each—several of them top-to-bottom revisions.
·        There are multiple factors to consider when looking at programs. Some of the most important include:
 
o   Are there multiple professors actively working in your chosen field
§  By “active” I mean that you should be able to find publication credits from within the past five years—they need to be in touch with current scholarship.
o   What level of financial support do they offer—not just the annual funding, but whether they fund in summer, and how many years of funding are guaranteed
o   What courses have they offered in the past? What courses are they offering in the fall?
o   What is the teaching load like, and how do they prepare you for that load?
o   So-called rankings matter to a certain extent, but remember that those rankings are almost completely arbitrary. USNews rankings are helpful as a list of all programs offering Ph.D.s in English…and a very, very general sense of the strong programs vs. the less strong. But FIT with your interests trumps all.
§  (E.g. the Strode program at U of A is highly regarded, even though U of A itself is somewhat less so)
o   Location and cost of living. A 20k stipend will get you a lot further in Lincoln, Nebraska than in New York. And elements like small town vs. large city, cold vs. warm climate etc. are all perfectly valid factors when looking at programs. You’ll have to live in this place for 4-6 years, after all!
·        A few quick and random tips:
 
o   It can be helpful to contact professors ahead of time to determine research fit etc., but it can also be quite valuable to contact current grad students to get a sense of the program and the environment.
o   Remember that an important part of professionalization in a Ph.D. program is publication. More than anything, this means that before you go down the road toward application, give some serious thought to whether or not your writing and research inclinations have that kind of potential. And whether or not that’s something you really want to deal with at all.
o  Also remember that teaching is a huge part of your job, and always will be. If you don’t enjoy teaching (or the prospect of teaching), you’d better really love the other components of your position, because there’s not going to be any getting away from it for many, many years.
o   It might go without saying, but be very courteous in all of your communications with professors and other graduate students. And that courtesy should be sincere!
o   Consider the total cost of applications: application fees average about $75, sending GRE scores is $27 (more if you need the subject test), and if you have multiple transcripts, that can tack on another $10. In other words, each application will likely be upward of $100. Given that I recommend applying to at least ten programs, you’re looking at a commitment of over $1000. There ARE fee waivers you can find, however.
o   Forums like GradCafe are a good way to socialize with fellow applicants, and commiserate with people in the same situation. Just remember to take all advice you see on those forums with a grain of salt.
o   Finally, there are NO SAFETY SCHOOLS. Just to reiterate, rankings are arbitrary, and almost every program gets ten times as many applicants as they can admit (let alone fund). As a result, you want to look at the best overall fit for you.
 
 

Was this material related to your thesis or anything? If not, then it looks like you're being given the opportunity for credit of authorship by editing, which is not uncommon for undergrads, masters students, or PhD students without a lot of their own research already out there.  That's a gift  However, if this is supposed to have been your thesis or dissertation material, I would be concerned.
As to what you can contribute - clearly he/she wants you to review and edit the formatting issues outlined, so make sure to be thorough at that. As for content, this is an opportunity for you to go over the fine details of methods and theory, make sure that all the necessary pieces are accounted for, and look for ways to potentially expand upon the already written portions of theory and discussion/limitations. I would definitely not send it back without a thorough review and at least a few additions or suggestions to improve it. This is a great way to show that you are thinking critically about the material, that you are paying attention to small details, and that you are not afraid to find and use your own voice. If they hate your suggestions they will just toss them out - but if you don't do any, it will look like you didn't even try.