Conquering her fears of failure was crucial for folk singer Lucy Kaplansky in order to quit her own psychology practice and find her voice in music.

Kaplansky, who has been featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and CBS’s “Early Show,” makes her Maintenance Shop debut Tuesday night.

Eric Yarwood, M-Shop coordinator, says he fell in love with Kaplansky’s voice a few years ago after listening to her third album and has admired her from a distance for a long time.

“I realized this woman is pretty big in the folk world and we’ve never had her here before,” he says. “I’m interested to see what reaction we might see from the crowd.”

Kaplansky kicked her career off after high school, moving to New York, playing clubs and getting to know a group of up-and-coming songwriters and performers that included Suzanne Vega, Bill Morrissey and John Gorka.

At the time Kaplansky’s music began to take off in the early ’80s, she re-evaluated her desire for a life in the music industry.

“This was a time when things were going really well for me,” Kaplansky says. “I thought I didn’t want to sing.”

Kaplansky decided to get her doctorate in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University in New York.

“I was in therapy at the time and thought that would be interesting,” she says.

During her nearly 10-year hiatus from music, Kaplansky worked at a New York hospital with chronically mentally ill patients and started her own practice, but still recorded with people such as Shawn Colvin, Nanci Griffith and Gorka.

It took some time, but her love of music drew her back to the stage.

“It’s what I’m passionate about,” she says. “It was clear that’s what I’m meant to do. I have not missed [psychology] for one minute.”

Kaplansky’s latest release, “Every Single Day,” is a fusion of alternative country, rock, folk and pop. As with her three previous albums, the desire to try to do other people’s songs in a new way has led Kaplansky to cover other artists’ songs. The process of finding songs to use is not a short one.

“I try it out live a bunch with the band. If it works, we see if it fits the album. If so, we end up recording it,” Kaplansky says.

The current album features songs from Steve Earle, Julie Miller, Paul Brady and the Louvin Brothers.

While she may not have plans to practice psychology again, Kaplansky says her former profession has helped her songwriting.

“It changed my perception about everything,” she says. “I think about things I didn’t used to think about.”

Yarwood agrees about Kaplansky’s lyrical influence from psychology.

“You don’t find too many clinical psychologists in the folk world,” he says.