Barbara Karlsen is a nurse as well as a registered somatic psychotherapist. Overall she has twenty- four years of experience promoting health and wellness in various traditional and nontraditional settings. She describes her theoretical orientation as integrative, body-centered, relational and holistic. She has a systems –oriented philosophy that informs her therapeutic model and approach. She especially enjoys working experientially with dance and movement to support transformation on all levels; emotional, physical, cognitive, energetic and spiritual. She also has experience with DBT

A holistic, body/mind integrating psychotherapist and art therapist, my 23 years experience with individuals and couples shapes collaborations in which the client's own wisdom-knowing guides unique journeys into wholeness.

My experiential psychodynamic approach to depth healing and integration incorporates gestalt, applied existential psychology, creativity, guided imagery and dreamwork to resolve family of origin issues, developmental trauma, major life transitions, and explore potent life experiences such as relationships, chronic illness, eldering and identifying as GLBT.

I also facilitate classes based on Artlife Creation, exploring the intuitive creativity inherent throughout our lives, and authored the Sounds True teaching set Artlife: Creative Journeys for Life Healing (http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/Artlife/4273.pd)

Manual Chinese Five Element Body Therapy is a Soft Tissue Manipulation approach to rehabilitating the Mind/Body from acute and chronic injuries, stress injuries, trauma, and metabolic problems.

What we see as a problem can be a profound gift from Life. Each time we encounter our pain, our depression, our anxiety or a reoccurring argument with a partner, we are asked to grow, dig deeper, learn new truths or skills, or new ways of perceiving our lives, ourselves, and our loved ones. When we take the time to answer the call that life has given us, we can greatly enrich, deepen, and even heal our lives and ourselves. I believe in providing a safe and sacred space where clients can begin to open to a new experience of themselves using compassion as our guide, our mentor, and our lens. As we open to our experience, the good with the bad, we find that we are more resilient that we thought; we find renewed hope or a deeper sense of meaning as we discover new strengths, insights, or gifts about ourselves and our lives.