Karen's areas of focus in counselling:
- Anxiety disorders
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Phobias
- Communication issues
- Cross-cultural relationships and communication
- Depression
- Discernment Counselling for couples
- Faith Crises
- Family of origin
- Guilt/Shame
- Loss/grief
- Marriage and family counselling
- Navigating separation and divorce
- Pastoral counselling
- Relationship repair after infidelity
- Self-esteem
- Stress management
Karen experienced the following symptoms:
- Anger
- Deep discouragement
- Depression
- Difficulty with focus and concentration
- Fear of judgment by others
- Fear of losing control
- Feelings of impending doom
- Guilt and shame
- Hypervigilence
- Imagining/expecting the worst
- Negative/obsessive thinking
- Obsessive thoughts
- Ruminating
- Social anxiety/withdrawal
Karen's Biography
Professional Bio
Karen has a Master of Arts with a major in Marriage and Family Therapy. She has taken additional training in Discernment Counselling, Emotionally Focused Therapy with Individuals, and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. Karen has Level 1 Certification in Eye Movement Integration and is a Certified Edu-Therapy Solutions Facilitator (Grief Specialist). She incorporates Narrative and Family Systems modalities in her work and has a particular interest in integrative approaches such as Mindfulness and Interpersonal Neurobiology.
Karen has always found it easy to make meaningful connections with people. Her own struggle with self-worth, depression, and anxiety have shaped her into an empathic and caring counsellor. She is passionate about gently exploring the deep and difficult places of ones story and helping people find clarity, healing, and wholeness in their lives.
Personal Bio
Karen grew up in a stable, loving home surrounded by a supportive extended family. Despite this, she struggled with low self-esteem throughout adolescence and most of her adulthood. She often felt overshadowed by others who she perceived as more talented, attractive, or skilled. As a result, Karen developed negative, self-defeating thought patterns and narratives which affected her ability to live with clarity and confidence.As a young adult, Karen was involved in a variety of cross-cultural volunteer experiences. While volunteering in the West Indies, she met her husband. They married and lived on a small island for several years, where they raised their two sons. It was during these years of cultural adjustment, parenting with minimal family support, marital challenges, and suffering from extreme loneliness that Karen began to struggle with depression. While she was generally able to keep up with her daily duties as a wife and mother, her mood, energy level, and ability to embrace life were deeply impacted.
In 2002 Karen returned to Canada with her family, where she experienced more change along with new stressors related to parenting, finances, professional and academic pursuits, and the loss of significant friendships. Her depression continued, and daily anxiety became a reality. It was only through faith, determination, and the ongoing support of family and friends that Karen has been able to experience healing in her heart and mind.
The combination of good self-help information and working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist, coach, or counselor is the most effective way to address anxiety and its many symptoms. Until the core causes of anxiety are addressed – which we call the underlying factors of anxiety – a struggle with anxiety unwellness can return again and again. Dealing with the underlying factors of anxiety is the best way to address problematic anxiety.
Additional Resources
- For a comprehensive list of Anxiety Disorders Symptoms Signs, Types, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment.
- Anxiety and panic attacks symptoms can be powerful experiences. Find out what they are and how to stop them.
- How to stop an anxiety attack and panic.
- Free online anxiety tests to screen for anxiety. Two minute tests with instant results. Such as:
- Anxiety 101 is a summarized description of anxiety, anxiety disorder, and how to overcome it.
anxietycentre.com: Information, support, and coaching/counseling/therapy for problematic anxiety and its sensations and symptoms, including anxiety psychotherapist Karen Gibson.