Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Krystal Stanley

Dr. Krystal Stanley, a core faculty member in the Wright Institute’s Counseling Psychology program, spent the first fifteen years of her life in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lived with her parents and three younger siblings. When Dr. Stanley was fifteen, her family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for her father’s job in the pharmaceutical field. They moved again to Fort Dodge, Iowa for her senior year of high school. “It seems like it would be a big deal, but it didn’t feel that way,” she reflected. “I think I was always up for an adventure!”

For her undergraduate studies, Dr. Stanley decided to stay in Iowa and attended the University of Iowa. In high school, she was inspired by daytime talk shows to pursue a career in psychology. “They had a lot of episodes about out of control teenagers and there was a Black woman psychologist who they would always bring on as a specialist,” she recalled. “I liked her calmness and the way that she was really present with the kids and I decided I wanted to do that.” Dr. Stanley enjoyed her time at the University of Iowa, living in on campus housing, and serving as a resident advisor. In 2001, she graduated with a BA in psychology and spanish.

After graduating, Dr. Stanley wanted to continue on to pursue a masters degree. Her family had moved to South Carolina, so she decided to attend the counseling program at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, where she graduated with her MEd in 2004. For her practicum, she worked as a school-based community mental health counselor, providing therapy to middle and high school students. “I got to do individual therapy, create groups, observe in classroom settings, and perform home visits,” she explained. “It was a really interesting and unique experience and I learned a lot.”

Dr. Stanley planned to take a break after her master program before enrolling in a PhD program because she was feeling burnt out. However, on a whim, she decided to apply to one program and leave it up to fate. She was accepted to the PhD program at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, PA and decided to attend. Looking back, Dr. Stanley describes her time at Penn State as her most difficult educational experience. “It was really good training, but it was a lot of work and kicked up a lot of performance anxiety for me,” she reflected. “There weren’t many places to escape since it was three to four hours from any major city and there weren’t a lot of other Black students on campus.” Dr. Stanley provided counseling services to other college students as part of her training, which was great practice but also meant she could run into them on campus at any time.. “Whenever people ask me about getting a doctorate, I always tell them that you have to have your eye on the prize,” she advised. Dr. Stanley graduated from Penn State in 2009 with a PhD in counseling psychology.

Dr. Stanley completed her pre-doctoral internship at the University of South Carolina’s Counseling and Human Development Center in Columbia, SC from 2007-2008, where she provided short and long-term psychotherapy to students and co-led psychotherapy groups. “My biggest takeaway from that experience was that they sat us down during the first week and told us that they considered us colleagues - that they were here to teach and supervise us, but also to learn from us,” she explained. “To be regarded as a colleague at that point in my career made me feel like they trusted me and were invested in me and it made all the difference.” Dr. Stanley had a great experience and was able to relax and find herself as a therapist.

From 2008-2009, Dr. Stanley was a postdoctoral fellow at Loyola College’s Counseling Center in Baltimore, MD, where she provided short-term psychotherapy services to undergraduate and graduate students. “I really like working with college students, so my post-doc at Loyola was great,” she shared. “I also had the opportunity to supervise doctoral students in the PsyD program who were completing an externship at the counseling center and I love being a supervisor, so it was nice to continue to hone my skills.” Dr. Stanley also enjoyed that the fellowship was focused on training training directors and gave her the opportunity to work closely with the center’s own training director. “The biggest challenge was that I was not yet done with my dissertation, so the first half of my postdoc year was spent working to get it done,” she explained. “This was difficult because I was burnt out, but it also meant that I was unable to start counting my postdoc hours towards licensure until I completed it.”

Dr. Stanley opened her own group private practice called Re-New Psychological Services in 2010 in Washington, D.C and Silver Spring, MD, where she provides adult psychotherapy services, clinical supervision, and oversees administrative operations. She initially started the practice with her former partner, but quickly brought in other therapists to expand. “I didn’t anticipate the weight of having employees - it's a lot of responsibility because, even if they are licensed, it’s still my business,” she confessed. “If something were to happen, it would impact me directly, so that means that I have to be very clear about policies and oversight and make sure that clients know who to contact if they have an issue.” At the height of their growth, the practice had four offices, employed close to thirty therapists, and provided services to about 350 people each week. During the pandemic, they transitioned to virtual therapy and have continued virtually since that time.

In the spring of 2020, Dr. Stanley took on her first teaching role in the Clinical Psychology PsyD program at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Washington, DC. “For a few years, I got caught up in running a business and had no time for anything else,” she explained. “But once the business started running itself, I started looking into teaching opportunities.” At the Chicago School, Dr. Stanley worked together with Dr. Lea Didion, who she now teaches alongside at the Wright Institute, to develop and teach two sections of a Supervision, Consultation and Professional Practice course. “We did a lot of collaboration because that class has never been taught at the Chicago School and we had to create it from scratch,” she recalled. “But I really liked it because I do a lot of supervision and consultation so I felt very comfortable with the subject matter.”

From 2023-2025, Dr. Stanley taught in the Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy/Clinical Counseling programs at Golden Gate University and at Santa Clara University. Between the two institutions, she taught Clinical Assessment II: Testing, Formal Assessment, Group Models of Counseling, and Psychopathology, but she particularly loved teaching Group Models of Counseling. “That’s a fun class to teach, especially because most students come in not interested in working with groups,” she explained. “By the end, I’ve pretty much convinced everyone of the joys of doing group therapy.” Dr. Stanley enjoyed teaching all of the courses, but admitted it was a lot of reading as the students wrote five papers each quarter. “I think teaching is very intellectually stimulating, so all of those classes were stimulating in their own way,” she shared. “I learn a lot also from teaching, even after being in the field for almost 20 years at this point.”

In the summer of 2024, Dr. Stanley joined the adjunct faculty of the Wright Institute’s Counseling Psychology program. She found out through a friend that the Wright Institute was hiring and was excited to join the team, teaching Clinical Assessment and Measures her first semester. Since that time, she has also taught Counseling Theories and Techniques, Individual and Family Development, Research Based Practice, and Common Therapeutic Factors. This spring was Dr. Stanley’s first time teaching Common Therapeutic Factors and she really enjoyed it. “That’s really the heart of what we're doing as therapists - sitting with people and connecting with them,” she reflected. “Learning how to do that and teaching people how to do that is really fun.” Dr. Stanley loves bringing stories and examples from her experience in the field into the classroom and is grateful for how engaged her students at the Wright Institute have been.

This spring, Dr. Stanley joined the Counseling Program’s part-time core faculty. “After years of teaching at different places, I started to feel like I really wanted to commit my time and energy in one place and I wanted that to be at the Wright Institute,” she explained. “I wanted to know the students better, understand more about how the program works, and become a more integrated part of the community.” Dr. Stanley found it exhausting to teach at several institutions with different schedules, expectations, and technology, so was excited for the opportunity to settle down in one place. “I like the community here - the students are great and the faculty and staff are really nice,” she shared. “Everyone has been so warm and welcoming the whole time I’ve worked here.”

Dr. Stanley’s advice to students in the Counseling Program is to focus on the “why” that led them to pursue this degree whenever the path gets challenging. “When you start to doubt yourself because it’s feeling too hard, you need to remember why you are doing this,” she advised. “You don’t have to know exactly, but think about what you hope to learn about yourself and what you hope to contribute to the field.” Dr. Stanley also encourages students to be self-reflective. “As therapists, we have a lot of power whether we want to or not,” she explained. “So it’s important that we know ourselves as well as we can and to be really open to feedback and to potentially modifying some things as we're learning more.” In her new role as part of the core faculty, Dr. Stanley will have many opportunities to share her sage guidance with students.

Since 2019, Dr. Stanley has published nine articles in Independent Practitioner, primarily focused on the topic of weight stigma. Her goal in writing about weight stigma was to encourage other therapists to be aware of their biases against folks with different body sizes and how they may be communicating judgement unintentionally. “We treat body size as the only thing that’s not allowed to be variable in life,” she reflected. “We act like everyone should be within a certain BMI and it’s the only area where we are judgemental about variability in bodies.” This was part of her work as a board member of the American Psychological Association’s Division 42 for psychologists in independent practice. “The body mass index (BMI) is a sham, but it’s being used to make very important decisions for people’s lives,” she explained. “So I wrote this series of articles to bring that to light and stimulate some thought and conversation.”

In her free time, Dr. Stanley enjoys an array of hobbies. “Right now, I’m spending a lot of my free time doing cross stitch, which I did a lot as a child,” she shared. “I’m also part of a fat hiking group here in the Bay Area, so I do some hikes with them.” Dr. Stanley loves cooking in general and baking sweet breads and cakes. “I find it relaxing and fun to try new recipes,” she explained. “I've got a Pinterest board with hundreds of recipes on it that I will try when I have time.” She also enjoys paddle boarding when the weather is nice and playing the guitar and ukulele.

Looking ahead, Dr. Stanley hopes to continue on her current path as she is really enjoying the balance of teaching and doing therapy. At some point in the future, she would like to advance to a leadership role, but for now she’s enjoying the ride. “This is what I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I’m finally here,” she admitted. “I just want to settle into this for a while!”