About Karen….

History
I began my path to becoming a therapist in the 1980's by noticing, and beginning to work on healing my own dysfunctional behaviors. I was in therapy for three years, while simultaneously doing extensive journaling, dream work, and intensely studying the healing/recovery field. I spent a good portion of every day doing this work and continued to do so even after I had discontinued therapy. I discovered that this "hobby" of mine was in fact my life's passion and one that I would never outgrow. It was natural then for me to choose to become a professional in the area that so absorbed my time.

Today I still spend many hours a day in the pursuit of my own spiritual and psychological growth. I do not do this to arrive at some pinnacle of health......I do this because it is for me, the most rewarding way to spend my days and my life. I find personal growth to be fun, exhilarating and magical, and teaching others the tools of this path to be equally delightful. My own personal path requires much time for meditation, exercise, pondering, relationships, social service and frolic, so I rarely ever work with more than fifteen clients in a week. This allows me to feel fresh and invigorated with every client and jazzed about the work we are doing together.

I began my professional astrology practice in 1988 when I was still in graduate school. I found it to be a much more useful tool towards discovering and healing client's broken places than the psychological testing methods I was being taught. Five years later I opened a counseling practice with a sub-specialty of working with clients who wished to incorporate their spiritual beliefs and practices into their healing. I now have eleven years of counseling experience in child and sexual abuse recovery, co-dependence, relationship communications and dysfunctions, boundaries, parenting, career difficulties, dream work, anxiety, fears and phobias.

In the course of my ongoing personal quest for healing and growth I have experimented with many different techniques and approaches to healing.. Now as a healer I use many of these skills myself. Depending on the client, I may use art, music, movement, guided meditations, dreamwork, astrology or past life regressions to aid in the healing process. For other clients, many of those methods might feel foreign or uncomfortable and so I would use my more traditional methods. All are just tools to use wherever they would be most helpful.

I believe that being a professional in the mental health or spiritual growth field is unlike most other professions. To be a lawyer, for example, only requires that you practice law as you have learned it, not that you actually practice being a law abiding citizen. To be a doctor does not require one to be healthy. One could be a great doctor and yet smoke, drink, eat fast food and not exercise. Most professions only ask that a person take what they have learned in school and apply that knowledge to their occupations. I believe, however, that in mental health and spiritual growth, intellectual knowledge is not enough. To be a true professional in these fields requires one to go far beyond what one has learned, and to integrate that knowledge into physical, emotional, and spiritual experience. In these arenas a person must be able to embody what they teach.

An easy example from the counseling field is codependence because this is a dysfunction that most people share, even if in differing degrees. A therapist may have learned in school about codependence, how to recognize it, and how to heal it, but if they have not successfully worked on their own personal issues of codependence they will have no way of explaining to their clients how to get from where they are to where they want to be. A therapist can only guide their clients to healing if they have some personal experience of what the process entails. What one has learned in a book will not help a client if the therapist does not truly understand what it will take to put that knowledge into action. In my mind, being a therapist requires a person to be continually working on their own issues, their own personal and spiritual growth, or they will only have words to give to their clients, with no real understanding of how to help them.

I add this belief to my personal history because this is something that I think makes the work I do with my clients particularly valuable. It is not the intellectual knowledge I have acquired from college degrees and books that I think allows me to help guide people on their paths, but that I have spent several hours a day for twenty-five years learning to integrate that knowledge that I believe is most helpful. I know first hand what it is like to walk the path of recovery from sexual abuse, addictions, codependence and depression. Because of those experiences I have worked diligently over the years to discover and refine the tools and techniques that have allowed me the most direct relief and healing. These are the very techniques that are the foundation of the work that I now do.

My practice….
When I opened my practice a decade ago I had imagined that I would create a fairly mainstream counseling practice. From the beginning it was not that way. Most of the clients that came to me those first few years were people who were very spiritual and often strongly psychic and who had problems in both of those areas. In order to work on their mental health issues it was imperative to also deal with their spiritual and psychic issues. In doing so my practice veered off the mainstream path and became filled with the additions of dreamwork, astrology, past-life regressions, meditations, movement, sound, art, color, and channeling. I began researching and using any tool that would help clients better access their emotions, their unconscious, and their connection to spirit.

My practice continued to become more unusual after I left the northwest. I began to work extensively on the phone for the first time as many of my old clients continued to want to work with me. Likewise, many of the health care providers that had been recommending their clients to me, continued to do so. Now, however, they specified that I lived out of state and did my sessions on the phone. Those who were referring to me found that many of their clients had not previously been able to work with a therapist due to odd schedules, constant travel or living in remote locations. Because my work was on the phone, my own schedule became much more flexible and I could easily adapt to a variety of client needs.

Also because most of my work was on the phone I began to see the need and the ease of "impromptu" appointments. In addition to regularly scheduled appointments, I encouraged clients to call whenever they were in need so that we could solve the issue in the moment it was happening. I would not always be immediately available, of course, but could usually get back to them within several hours, rather than wait days until their next appointment. I have very good boundaries and do not let this interfere with my personal life, but I have found this flexibility to be very useful for both myself and the client. I would charge for these appointments by the minute, rather than the hour. This has worked very successfully and I have found it to be one of the primary benefits of phone therapy.

Another benefit of this type of work is that I am now available to people all over the country, whether they are just traveling through distant locations or live there. I have clients throughout the country now and enjoy hearing the differences in their regional experiences and expectations. This also works well because of the time zones. I am able to talk to my east-coast clients at 5 or 6 in the morning my time which was not a popular hour with my west coast clients, but it is a great time for me.

Today my practice is exclusively by phone and focuses on helping clients integrate both their psychological and spiritual issues. A large majority of my clients are now mental health therapists and other health care workers, seeking both personal guidance and assistance with their own clients. Another large section are those seeking healing from abuse. The remaining clients are usually most focused on work issues, from finding their right career path both spiritually and financially, to how to market themselves and their skills. Obviously, there is much overlap between these groups as we rarely have issues in just one area, but these are the focal points for many.

Credentials:

I received my Bachelors degree in Psychology with a minor in Women's Studies from Portland State University in 1985. Also from Portland State, I received my Master's of Science degree in Sociology with a counseling emphasis in 1994. In 1998 I received a certificate in past-life regression from the Dick Sutphen Hypnosis training seminar.

I became a Minister with the Universal Life Church in 1999. The Universal Life Church believes that all paths to God are valid and is completely non-denominational.

The Doctrine for the Universal Life Church is as follows:
The Universal Ministries is a nondenominational church founded in the truth of accepting the rights of all to follow their own personal beliefs without our intervention. We uphold the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, and the right of the individual to legally worship as they please. We uphold the Federal law that provides each church with the inalienable right to establish legal clergy and to appoint legal ministers within that establishment.

The Universal Ministries will ordain anyone that requests ordination within the doctrines of this church. Ordination is the right of all legal churches to establish within the doctrines and bylaws of the church and is not limited only to the opinions of some churches as to whom can be ordained. All ministers of legal churches have the same authority in the laws of this nation. In 1517, Martin Luther stated that all men (women included today) have the God given right to Baptize and are therefore as well of the priesthood of God. Jesus said that all that accept him are of His priesthood. Buddha shared that all that become enlightened have found God. All paths share God's acceptance and Love that we may all serve in faith. Though our Founders were originally ordained through the Universal Life Church and still maintain good standing with them, we founded the Universal Ministries independently of that church in order to be a truly independent nondenominational church that complies with the laws of all States. With members sharing in several denominations and faiths we created the Universal Ministries to encompass all beliefs, and invite all members to contribute to our weekly sermons and programs. We build this church through our spiritual sharing, that others may find the wonders of religious enlightenment.

The Doctrine of this Ministry is that we "Do what is right, live fruitful lives, be true to ourselves and the God each of us worship, while causing no harm to others, and accept the individual's right to worship as they see fit within the laws of their respective countries."

Through the expansion of our current and future membership we will share the beliefs of many forms of enlightenment. We invite not just Christians, but the Jewish, Islamic Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Episcopalians, Baptists, Catholics, Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, Wiccans, Pagans, Bahai, and all others to join us in our individual search for enlightenment.

We acknowledge that spiritual growth comes from finding the truth in our individual ways throughout life. Each of us must find our own Holy Grail. Through our Statement of Faith, the doctrines of this church, and our desire to share, the Universal Ministries is willing to share with everyone that wishes the benefits of our organization.

After seven years as a practicing mental health therapist in Oregon and Arizona, I moved to California. Here I found that I was one class shy of being qualified for their therapist license. Rather than allow me to take that one class, I was going to have to take their entire two year counseling program. I decided not to do that and instead have changed how I practice. I am not licensed in the state of California as a mental health therapist, but I am a licensed minister and so I now do counseling only when clients wish to integrate both spiritual and psychological work. I also do astrology readings, past-life regressions, coaching, dream work instruction, art/sound work and teach classes on relationship skills and various spiritual integration topics.

Why consulting?

Karen Freeman Consulting is an umbrella term for the various things that I do. Because my practice is by phone, many of my clients call when issues arise rather than schedule regular appointments. Our appointments may run five minutes or several hours, depending on the need. Most of this work is concrete problem solving, even while in the context of long term emotional recovery. Clients call for help with a variety of issues from career assistance, to managing health issues, to creating boundaries in relationships, and finding spirit amidst abuse recovery. I began my practice as a therapist, but today I find that what I do is much more accurately described as consulting.