About Karen
Karen Ellis is a licensed clinical social worker with 14 years of practice experience. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, bipolar symptoms, grief, and the fallout from trauma and abuse. Karen aims to make the first step feel doable and respectful.
Her approach centers on practical tools and steady support. She blends Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people notice unhelpful thoughts and make changes that match their values.
Background and approach
She also uses Client-Centered and Solution-Focused ideas to keep sessions grounded in the person’s priorities. Karen works with a wide range of life issues. She helps people navigate relationship and intimacy concerns, parenting strain, blended family challenges, and separation or divorce.
She also supports those coping with anger, body image concerns, obsessive-compulsive patterns, and process or sex addiction. Sessions include goal-setting and short-term strategies alongside deeper work when it’s needed. Conversations often focus on clear steps clients can try between visits.
Motivational Interviewing is used to build readiness for change and to help people move toward goals they actually want. Based in Oregon, Karen brings straightforward language and practical planning to therapy. She encourages people to take manageable steps and to notice progress, even if it feels small.
The work she offers is collaborative and paced to each person’s needs.
How therapeutic approaches shape online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on helping people clarify what matters to them and take small steps aligned with those values. It helps with anxiety, depression, and life transitions by shifting the focus from fighting thoughts to living intentionally. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) teaches practical skills to notice and change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns. It suits worries about mood, obsessive patterns, and stress by breaking problems into manageable parts.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Karen treats therapy as a collaboration and will help decide which methods fit a person’s goals and preferences. Together they plan measurable steps and adjust strategies over time so the work stays relevant and doable.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to meet. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and shared visual cues. Phone sessions can be a lower-bandwidth option for a focused check-in. Live chat or text-based messaging can support short updates, homework check-ins, or moments when typing feels easier than talking. These formats make it simpler to fit therapy into a busy life and to continue making progress between sessions.
Frequently asked questions
What kinds of problems does Karen help with?
What is her general therapy style?
How much clinical experience does she have?
What are her credentials and where is she based?
Which languages are supported and can she work with international clients?
What session formats are available?
How does payment and cost work?
How do I begin working with Karen?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Grief
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Money and financial issues
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Sex addiction
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 14 years
- Licensed
- Oregon
- Languages
- English