Refocus Careers
Refocus Careers
Angela Stephens, a 30 year Retained Executive Search Consultant & Career Co
One Chapter Changed Everything: Dr. Karolina Pekala on Becoming a Clinical Psychologist
16 minutes Posted Aug 12, 2026 at 2:32 pm.
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Angela Stephens talks with Dr. Karolina Pekala, a licensed clinical psychologist in New York, about the road that got her there. She had journalism picked out and NYU in her sights until a senior year AP Psychology assignment on developmental psychology changed her mind entirely. Dr. Pekala walks through NYU, a master's at Columbia Teachers College, a doctorate at Long Island University Post, and the training nobody puts in a course catalog, including twelve hour on call shifts as a crisis counselor and victim advocate in New York City emergency rooms while she was still an undergraduate. She breaks down the difference between a PsyD and a PhD, why therapists need therapists of their own, and what to tell a young adult who has no idea what comes next. Learn more at nyhealthhypnosis.com/dr-karolina-pekala or find her on LinkedIn, where she's most active.