Clinical experience with a distinctly human approach

Karen Hirschkorn has practiced as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner since 1996. Over the course of her career, she has worked with children, adolescents, adults, and families across hospital, home-care, academic, and private-practice settings.

She brings evidence-based psychiatric care together with psychotherapy, family-systems thinking, and a relational understanding of how people change. Her goal is not simply to reduce symptoms, but to help patients understand themselves more fully and function more effectively in their lives.

Education and early career

Karen earned her undergraduate degree in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Vermont and her graduate degree in Psychiatric Nursing from Vanderbilt University.

She began her career in psychiatric home care, working with people living with chronic psychiatric illness. She later spent eight years at St. Mary’s Hospital for Children, where she provided psychopharmacology services to medically complex children, including young people living with HIV, diabetes, brain injury, depression, anxiety, and OCD.

Hospital and academic experience

Beginning in 1999, Karen served as a medical staff provider at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital in the Comprehensive Care Clinic, working with patients living with HIV and their families through 2013.

She was also appointed as an adjunct faculty member in the undergraduate and graduate psychiatric programs at NYU School of Nursing, a role she held until 2011.

Advanced psychotherapy training

Karen received ongoing training through the Beck Institute and became a Certified Cognitive Therapist. From 2011 through 2017, she completed intensive family and couples work training at the Ackerman Institute for the Family.

Private practice in New York

Karen opened her private practice in 1999 and now practices full time from her office on Central Park South. She provides psychiatric evaluations, psychotherapy, medication management, parent sessions, and family-informed care for children, adolescents, and adults.

How Karen works

The work is serious, but the relationship does not need to feel stiff. Karen is direct, compassionate, engaged, and comfortable using humor when it helps. She pays close attention to evidence while remembering that treatment has to work in the patient’s actual life—not only on paper.

Professional Background

    • Academy of Cognitive Therapy, Professional Member

    • Women’s Mental Health Consortium, Professional Member

    • Anxiety and Depression Association of America

    • CAB-NYC: Community and Beyond

  • New York State Nurse Practitioner license: F400 376

  • Berger-Gross, P., Coletti, D. J., Hirschkorn, K., Terranova, E., & Simpser, E. “The Effectiveness of Risperidone in the Treatment of Three Children With Feeding Disorders.” Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 14(4), 621–627.