Initial sessions
The first few sessions usually involve gaining a collaborative understanding of the client’s presenting concerns. Karen will ask clients about their current functioning, and identify any contributing and maintaining factors. From the initial assessment stage, Karen will provide clients with a set of recommendations for intervention or referral options.
Some common presentations Karen works with includes:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Persistent/ Chronic pain
- Functional Neurological Pain (FND)
- Eating disorders
- Adult ADHD
- Relationship difficulties
- Adjustment concerns
- Recovering from family breakup/ divorce
- Child behavioural difficulties
- School- related stress (particularly for grade 11 and 12)
- School-related friendship difficulties
- Adolescent substance abuse
- Sleep difficulties
There are a range of evidence-based treatments that Karen has had extensive experience in, including:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Karen works with clients to identify unhelpful thoughts and behaviours, from the CBT perspective, there are patterns of thoughts and behaviours which cause symptoms to appear and maintain difficult symptoms. We then work together to build a set of effective coping skills to combat issues a client is facing. There is a strong focus on practice and homework tasks as part of this framework, and most of the improvement happens between therapy sessions. Find out more about CBT here.
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
DBT, developed by Marsha Linehan, is a therapy designed initially for the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). DBT is a cognitive behavioural therapy, meaning it is a therapy that focuses on the role of cognition (e.g., thoughts and beliefs) and behaviours (e.g., actions) in the development and the treatment of poor emotional regulation, poor distress tolerance, difficulties with interpersonal relationships and difficulties with coping with the here and now. Find out more about DBT here.
Radically Open Dialetical Behavioural Therapy (RO DBT)
RO DBT is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy developed by Thomas Lynch for disorders of emotional overcontrol. RO DBT is a transdiagnostic treatment indicated for patients with diagnoses of chronic depression, treatment-resistant anxiety disorders, anorexia nervosa, autism spectrum disorders, and avoidant, paranoid and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders. Find out more about RO-DBT here.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
ACT (pronounced act): Karen work with clients to identify sources of suffering. Quite often this involves identifying areas in their life where they are not living towards their values. Using the ACT framework, Karen is able to help clients build psychological flexibility. Some techniques we use include building mindfulness, delusion, and increasing valued actions. There is good evidence for this type of treatment in clients who have symptoms of depression, anxiety and chronic pain. Find out more about ACT here.
Behavioural Family Intervention
Karen works with clients to determine the cause and maintaining factors of child misbehaviour. The aim is not to fix any behavioural problems but to train parents to be the problem solvers, to equip parents with skills and confidence to identify and prevent behavioural difficulties and to manage these with appropriate consequences. One of the evidence-based BFI packages is Triple P. Karen is accredited across the different levels of Triple P and provides seminars, groups and individual Triple P session to clients.