ATLANTA (CNN) -- Nadine Kaslow sits with
one slender ivory leg dangling, the other tucked neatly under her dress
with the heel of her beige pump facing up.

These legs have
supported her throughout her career as a dancer. But in her head, Kaslow
struggled for years over whether to follow that path or her passion for
psychology.

She eventually found a way to combine the two
worlds, serving not only as a psychologist for the Atlanta Ballet, but
also becoming a powerful force for providing accessible mental health
care for disadvantaged women.

"I always wore a ballerina around my
neck," she said of the gold charm she's had since age 13, which she
wore Wednesday in her office at Emory University School of Medicine.
"But I never talked about going to ballet. I just didn't think I'd be
taken seriously."

Now, as the new president-elect of the American
Psychological Association, Kaslow doesn't worry about that anymore.
Besides being an Emory professor and chief psychologist of Grady Health
System, she is also the psychologist for the Atlanta Ballet, where some
students call her "Doctor Dancer."

Kaslow, 56, grew up in the
Philadelphia area and started dancing when she was 3. She took classes
in creative movement, which involved developing skills such as "prancing
like a pony."

Little Nadine knew she wanted to do something more
than what the system had set out for her. She asked her mother who was
the head of the school, so she could ask to learn real dance with the
big kids. The boss told her she needed to be 5, but this didn't deter
her.

"I'd stand outside the class with the big kids and I would
do it in the hallway," she said. Finally, when she was 4, because of her
persistence, she was allowed to start real ballet classes with
5-year-olds.

Choosing psychology

In high
school and early college, Kaslow danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet.
But when she applied to college, she wrote that she wanted to be a
psychologist. It's what her mother did, too, and she enjoyed reading
books about psychological problems.

"I was one of those kids
that, when other kids had problems, I was the one they'd come and talk
to about their problems," she said. "I really wanted to help people but I
really wanted to understand through the human mind, human behavior and
human relationships."

Kaslow's mother Florence Kaslow also took on
leadership roles in the American Psychological Association and worked
to start up the Journal of Family Psychology, which the younger Kaslow
edits today. The men in her family also shared the same career: Kaslow's
brother and father worked together in financial planning for more than
20 years.

Kaslow's mother told the association's publication
"Monitor" in 2001 her daughter "has been a source of extreme pride and
joy for me, I love to hear how well she is doing and is received. Her
work stands on its own."

As an undergraduate at the University of
Pennsylvania, Kaslow studied depression in children and families; at the
University of Houston, she focused on women and depression while
getting her doctoral degree.

During graduate school, she
continued taking ballet classes. In her head, it was a tug of war over
whether she truly wanted a career in psychology or in dance. The
director of the Houston Ballet then offered her a choice: She could have
a position in the company, if she lost 15 pounds.

Perhaps because
of the body-consciousness of ballet, Kaslow remembers with ease how
much she weighed at various points in her life. As a Ph.D. student, she
said, she was already 12 pounds thinner than she is right now. On her
frame, not quite 5 feet tall, an additional 15-pound loss would be
dramatic.

"I knew at that point that that was not a healthy
lifestyle choice," she said. "I was old enough and I was out of the
system enough that I was able to stop and say that was it. That was my
defining moment."

She got her doctoral degree in 1983 and headed
to the University of Wisconsin for her internship and postdoctoral
fellowship training. Then, it was off to Yale University School of
Medicine, where she was an assistant professor.

A patient that
she had at this time made her once again confront her career choice. The
same day Kaslow went for her licensing exam to become a psychologist,
the patient took her own life.

Kaslow came to an important
decision: "I would dedicate much of my life to understanding suicidal
behavior in women. And in many ways it's because of her death that I
ended up on that trajectory."

A compassionate healer

An
opportunity at Emory caught Kaslow's eye in 1990. As part of the
position, she would be providing mental health care to people with
limited resources. The university's affiliation with the public Grady
Health System was extremely appealing to her.

She got the job,
which allowed her a combination of performing administrative work,
teaching, supervising students, seeing patients and conducting research
that could make a difference.

Grady Hospital is a Level 1 trauma
center and burn center, and a "safety net" where police often bring
people for mental health services. Kaslow is usually the first to jump
in and conduct a debriefing with staff after traumatic incidents, said
Michael Claeys, executive director at Grady Behavioral Health Services.

"People
around the hospital call her when there are issues, and she's just so
good at pulling people together, and helping them work through the
difficult emotions of death and grieving, the variety of shocking events
that can happen in an environment like Grady," he said.

Kaslow
is a mentor to everyone, and will make time to help anyone, even
students she barely knows, said Sarah Dunn, who was an intern and
postdoctoral fellow under Kaslow and will soon begin working at a
Grady-Emory psychiatric clinic. In her postdoctoral years, Dunn had
health issues of her own and nearly dropped out of the program. Kaslow
worked with her to make sure she stayed. A large painting of pink
flowers on a blue background hangs in Kaslow's Emory office today, a
thank-you gift painted by Dunn.

"With her kindness and flexibility, I was able to get through it," Dunn said.

Teaching and learning resilience

More
than 280 publications have Kaslow's name on them, spanning topics such
as family violence, depression and suicide, post-traumatic stress
disorder, therapy for couples and families and pediatric psychology.
She's involved in many efforts toward addressing these issues. For
instance, Kaslow will be leading a webcast on suicide prevention among
children on May 15.

One of Kaslow's key accomplishments was
founding the Grady Nia Project, a program in suicide and domestic
violence prevention for African-American women. The program aims to
empower women to lead lives without violence, and boost their
self-esteem. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the program has
touched the lives of about 1,000 women.

"These women have taught me so much about resilience and strength and hope," Kaslow said.

The
program began with one sparsely attended support group. Now there are
about 10 such groups, Kaslow said. In addition to being a research
project, Nia offers a full range of services. Its advisory board members
include a pastor, a police chief, and some of the women in the program.
To some in this program, said Dunn, Kaslow is known as "Mother Nia"
because she is "a mother to students and patients."

Nia has
research funding, but also benefits from numerous community
partnerships. The Atlanta Botanical Gardens and the Atlanta Symphony
have both donated passes so that the women can be exposed to new
cultural offerings.

Kaslow's eyes widen and gloss with emotion when she talks about her ultimate dream for these women.

"I
have a wish that I could get the money to -- this makes me sad to think
about it -- to build a really high-quality shelter for women and
children that's really nice, that's personalized and yet large. There
are so many people that come to us and when you ask them, 'What's the
one thing I could do to make your life better?' They say: 'Have a safe
place to live.' "

Her dedication to these women is such that she
is on call 24-7 for them, carrying a pager in case someone has a crisis
at any hour as long as she's in Atlanta. When she won the $25,000
Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award, she gave half of the money to Nia
participants.

"She will take money out of her own pocket to help
out these women," Dunn said. "They can't pay their electricity, they
don't have money to get home to see their kids -- she will do whatever
it takes."

At the ballet

About five years
ago, Kaslow started ballet classes at Atlanta Ballet Centre for Dance
Education. She met the center's director, Sharon Story, and the Atlanta
Ballet's artistic director John McFall. It turned out, there was a way
to reconcile her passion for ballet with her career in psychology.

Kaslow
became the Atlanta Ballet's first resident psychologist, helping the
students and professional dancers through wellness programming and
psychotherapy.

"She keeps dancing and brings her knowledge and
compassion to our dancers and students to pursue their lives and
passions with strength, confidence, and healthy well beings," Story said
in an e-mail. "Nadine is tiny in stature and a huge brilliant gem to
all of us at Atlanta Ballet."

When Kaslow started working with
dancers in her capacity as a psychologist, she thought eating disorders
would be a huge problem. Instead, she's found other issues are more
prevalent: Performance anxiety, balance between different activities and
perfectionism.

Perfectionism in particular is a problem that
Kaslow has struggled with herself, and something that she shares with
some of the dancers she's seen in therapy.

"I really talk to the
dancers about, how do you think about doing your best, and being good
enough, and what a realistic and attainable goal is, and I try to do
that for myself as well," she said.

The cultural norms of ballet are such that it's hard to know when a dancer truly has an eating disorder, she said.

"When
I weighed about 22 pounds less than I do now, I was told I looked like a
hippopotamus," she said. "The problem was that part of me believed
them. But I look at myself now and I say, 'Well, I don't really look
like a hippopotamus now, so I probably didn't look like a hippopotamus
20 pounds less than this.'"

Kaslow sees many connections between the study of the mind and of human relationships.

"As
a scientifically-minded psychologist, I build upon many of the
qualities that served me and others well in the dance world --
curiosity, persistence, patience, and a passion for the work," she said.
"As an educator, I know that when I am teaching dance or psychology, it
is essential that I provide a facilitating environment that nurtures
creativity, self-expression, self-acceptance, and a dedication to doing
one's best."

High recognition

These days, awards are raining
on Kaslow. In April, she received the "Inspiring Mentor Award" at Grady
Health Foundation's White Coat Grady Gala. She will be honored at this
year's Emory University commencement ceremony with the 2013 Thomas
Jefferson Award, the highest honor that the university gives.

Her
advice to graduates, she said, would be: "Follow your passions and your
dreams. I wish I had gotten that message sooner, and that I didn't feel
like I had to choose (between dance and psychology) for so long."

"I
think Nadine's biggest wish is that one day she will change the world,"
Dunn said. "But I'm not sure if she truly comprehends that she already
has."