Belkis

I wanted to thank you all for the great advice! I realize now that I need to be careful when framing the issue of funding if I decide to mention it in my application because it could rub people the wrong way. However, after all this back and forth, I realize that maybe I should not mention self-funding at all. 
As I learn more about the process of a PhD, I realize there is much more to funding than just support the student in exchange of cheap labor. I thought that if that was the case, I could just fund myself and have less commitments, since I hear people complaining all the time about how boring or "useless" some of these activities can be. But these impressions come from my ignorance about the process. 
Although I am not completely sure that a PhD is really what I want, I do believe that it would be beneficial. I love psychology as I stated previously, and I do enjoy the research process. I believe I can contribute to the field, but I don't agree with the idea that unless I'm selfless about it I don't have any business chasing a PhD. Let's not fool ourselves here! We all have a background in psychology and should understand the human psyche enough to know that we all look to fulfill our own needs and interests before we think about contribution. It's not uncommon to see individuals who contribute heavily to the field but have strong selfish motives (in academia this is more likely to be the norm than the exception). I have seen so many people embark on a PhD without the slightest clue when it comes to purpose or even the desire to contribute to the field. I'm not on either end of the spectrum. 
On the other hand, this discussion made me reflect if a PhD is going to significantly make an impact on my life/career to justify the investment of time and effort, as @Clinapp2017 suggested. I still don't know. I write mostly self-help books. My original career was in business (BA in business, MBA). I briefly worked in business consulting, but I soon started to write about personal management (personal planning, time management, goal setting, personal branding, etc.) and got established as an author. So that's how I developed an interest in psychology. I went on to get a BA in psychology and a master's mostly focused on evolutionary psychology (the reason why is a long story). I have developed a profound passion for the field and this has slowly changed my writing. As I talk about more "serious" topics in psychology (anxiety and mental issues in general, evolutionary roots of behavior, etc.) I get called out for "not knowing what I'm talking about" because I don't have a PhD. I'm not a "real" psychologist (this happens mostly with my U.S. audience, since in America to "be" a psychologist you must have completed a doctorate). Of course, this impression could be just a factor of where this feedback is coming from (social media, blogs, YouTube) and people can be really mean in these platforms. But when I heard from my publisher than a PhD would be a big plus if I want to write about more complex topics in psychology, I started to think about it more seriously. He said that if I want to write books that translate complex psychological concepts and current research to a general audience, he would rather market me as an "expert", and in this case, an expert is someone who has a PhD. He dropped names like Daniel Kahneman and Daniel Gilbert. He said he would love it if I could write something like "Stumbling on Happiness" or "Thinking, Fast and Slow" (and yes, this is the style I'm going for and I realize I don't really need a PhD to write these type of books). So I feel pressure from my audience and from my publisher, but the question is still up in the air. Will the effort pay off? I still don't have an answer. 
A program overseas, as someone has mentioned, would probably work out better if that meant that I could just work remotely and fly occasionally to meet my advisor. To be clear, I am an American living in Boston, but I also have Portuguese and German citizenship though ancestry and marriage (this caused some confusion). So it would be relatively easy to move to mainland Europe because my husband and I have EU passports. 
Nevertheless, as I think about my situation to elaborate it to you guys here, I can't help feeling like I'm trying very hard to complicate my life needlessly! 

I wanted to thank you all for the great advice! I realize now that I need to be careful when framing the issue of funding if I decide to mention it in my application because it could rub people the wrong way. However, after all this back and forth, I realize that maybe I should not mention self-funding at all. 
As I learn more about the process of a PhD, I realize there is much more to funding than just support the student in exchange of cheap labor. I thought that if that was the case, I could just fund myself and have less commitments, since I hear people complaining all the time about how boring or "useless" some of these activities can be. But these impressions come from my ignorance about the process. 
Although I am not completely sure that a PhD is really what I want, I do believe that it would be beneficial. I love psychology as I stated previously, and I do enjoy the research process. I believe I can contribute to the field, but I don't agree with the idea that unless I'm selfless about it I don't have any business chasing a PhD. Let's not fool ourselves here! We all have a background in psychology and should understand the human psyche enough to know that we all look to fulfill our own needs and interests before we think about contribution. It's not uncommon to see individuals who contribute heavily to the field but have strong selfish motives (in academia this is more likely to be the norm than the exception). I have seen so many people embark on a PhD without the slightest clue when it comes to purpose or even the desire to contribute to the field. I'm not on either end of the spectrum. 
On the other hand, this discussion made me reflect if a PhD is going to significantly make an impact on my life/career to justify the investment of time and effort, as @Clinapp2017 suggested. I still don't know. I write mostly self-help books. My original career was in business (BA in business, MBA). I briefly worked in business consulting, but I soon started to write about personal management (personal planning, time management, goal setting, personal branding, etc.) and got established as an author. So that's how I developed an interest in psychology. I went on to get a BA in psychology and a master's mostly focused on evolutionary psychology (the reason why is a long story). I have developed a profound passion for the field and this has slowly changed my writing. As I talk about more "serious" topics in psychology (anxiety and mental issues in general, evolutionary roots of behavior, etc.) I get called out for "not knowing what I'm talking about" because I don't have a PhD. I'm not a "real" psychologist (this happens mostly with my U.S. audience, since in America to "be" a psychologist you must have completed a doctorate). Of course, this impression could be just a factor of where this feedback is coming from (social media, blogs, YouTube) and people can be really mean in these platforms. But when I heard from my publisher than a PhD would be a big plus if I want to write about more complex topics in psychology, I started to think about it more seriously. He said that if I want to write books that translate complex psychological concepts and current research to a general audience, he would rather market me as an "expert", and in this case, an expert is someone who has a PhD. He dropped names like Daniel Kahneman and Daniel Gilbert. He said he would love it if I could write something like "Stumbling on Happiness" or "Thinking, Fast and Slow" (and yes, this is the style I'm going for and I realize I don't really need a PhD to write these type of books). So I feel pressure from my audience and from my publisher, but the question is still up in the air. Will the effort pay off? I still don't have an answer. 
A program overseas, as someone has mentioned, would probably work out better if that meant that I could just work remotely and fly occasionally to meet my advisor. To be clear, I am an American living in Boston, but I also have Portuguese and German citizenship though ancestry and marriage (this caused some confusion). So it would be relatively easy to move to mainland Europe because my husband and I have EU passports. 
Nevertheless, as I think about my situation to elaborate it to you guys here, I can't help feeling like I'm trying very hard to complicate my life needlessly!