Hi there. I’m Karen (they/them).

Who am I?

This answer is not straight forward. I am experiences and influences from my past. I am the unknowns of my future. I am also messiness and adventure of trying to no longer self-abandon in the present.

I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario in a fundamental evangelical Christian community. I was taught to die to self, that I was inherently bad and that I needed to be ready for the world ending at any moment. I tried to convert all my friends because I did not want them to go hell, a responsibility that felt like life and death.

I developed OCD and anorexia in myadolescence/late teens. I self-harmed, smoked and drank too much in my twenties.

I completed an HBA in Psychology through Lakehead University followed by a Masters of Divinity in Counselling through Heritage Seminary.

I married. I started my career. I had a child.

I built a life for myself.

In my late thirties, I started to understand, deconstruct and put words to my experiences of religious trauma. It oddly started out by informing my brother that I finally believed that dinosaurs were in fact real and that the world was older than 6000 years.

It was then that I felt free to do a piece of work around self-abandonment. Instead of dying to SELF, I needed to learn how to identify and chose SELF. I came out as queer, and later, non-binary. I could not have gotten here any sooner. It wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Now, I live, work and play on the Sunshine Coast/Vancouver Island area, in British Columbia. Specifically on the unceded traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation and K’ómoks First Nation.

We are complex creatures and WE MAKE SENSE. Finding and returning to SELF is hard rewarding work. It is also messy and raw. There is also room for finding fun along the way. For me, I do this by playing roller derby. I’m a jammer. They call me Feral Streak.

Nice to meet you! I hope we can keep talking and exploring with compassion and curiosity. I look forward to getting to know YOU more.

Now for the formal stuff.

Education:

  • Honours Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Lakehead University

  • Palliative Care Certificate from Lakehead University

  • Masters of Divinity from Heritage College and Seminary

  • Certificate in Eye Movement Reprocessing and Desensitization (E.M.D.R.)

  • Level 1 in Internal Family Systems

  • Trauma Certificate from Wilfred Laurier

  • The Empowered Supervisor though The Compassion Project School (Pauline O’Brien)

Professional Membership:

  • College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario - C.R.P.O. #001433

  • BC Association of Clinical Counsellors - B.C.A.C.C. # 20212

  • Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals – the O.A.M.H.P. (formally the Ontario Association of Consultants, Counsellors, Psychometrists and Psychotherapists)