Dr. Patricia Morgan’s Bio

I came from humble beginnings.  I was reared in rural western Pennsylvania by my widowed grandmother to escape an abusive step father.  Italian was spoken in my home and my grandmother could not read or write.  I could not participate in many school activities because we lived eight miles from the school with no means of transportation.  I was considered a marginal student until eleventh grade when I got glasses and could finally see the chalkboard and wall maps.  My emphasis in high school was to learn clerical skills to be able to support myself.

I married young and had one son.  The marriage quickly turned into an abusive relationship.  I got a job as a secretary in a college office in a nearby town.  After 11 years in an unhappy marriage, I filed for divorce and went out on my own.

As a returning adult ten years after high school and a single parent, I enrolled in a 3-credit college class, not expecting to do very well.  I studied hard and found that hard work paid off.  After several years of taking one or two classes a semester, I took a leave from my job and completed my last two years of college in one year, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in business.  

With thoughts about opening a day-care facility, I earned a Master of Education in Elementary Education.  When that didn’t work out, I was faced with a career decision.  I was working as an independent consultant and decided I really wanted to be a psychologist.  So here we go again—I started taking undergrad psych classes and earned a second bachelors degree.  By this time, I was remarried.

I then moved to Pittsburgh for graduate school.  I had never lived in a city and had never ridden public transportation.  I was frightened.  Determination kept me going.  To pay for my schooling I worked as a waitress at a country club.  I earned a second master’s degree (psychology) and was subsequently accepted into a doctoral program in clinical psychology.

I taught college classes in general psychology and study skills, and was a part-time psychotherapist in a private practice.  My 680 page Ph.D. thesis was about the lived experiences of seven young mothers who had undergone mastectomies.  After earning a Ph.D. in clinical psychology (2001), I did a two-year internship as lead therapist for a family-based mental health program.  I am now a licensed psychologist operating my own practice in Clarion, PA.

With every client, my goal is to work myself out of a job.