Phone: 503.334.4239 Email: kstclair@karenstclairpdx.com
Copyright © 2013 Karen St.Clair. All rights reserved.
While I don’t think of myself as an “expert” in all facets of being human, I know that twenty plus years of experience as a therapist have taught and reinforced an experiential lesson: each of us is our own expert, and an effective therapist works well with the expert within the client.
Psychotherapy is effective due to its relational quality. Whatever it is that my client desires to accomplish through therapy, when we share the therapeutic room, success comes about expressly due to the following principle: everything that humans learn, we learn through relationship. The “relationship-oriented” principle can be applied to the range of human experience including our relationships at home or at work; toward efforts of daily maintenance or creativity; and in times of peace or stress.
In my professional work, I use psychotherapeutic principles to govern myself so as to augment and enhance my client’s experience of our working relationship. This offers the client a way of seeing him/her self anew. This process might be likened to gazing in a mirror, and then reflecting verbally on what is actually seen. In its best sense, I hope to strive to support the client in being authentic in the context of a complex and multifaceted world. Consequently, I honor the client’s experience and willingly accept the reality that it is the client who decides the therapeutic goals if therapy is to be a success. Finally, I am fond of many aspects of cognitive behavioral, existential, and systems theories when applied with psychodynamic principles.
I am a licensed clinical social worker (L2197) in the State of Oregon since 1994. I have worked as a therapist since 1987, when I graduated from Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston, Massachusetts. Additionally, my work experience includes staff administration and clinical supervision in various settings which has enhanced my knowledge of systems. Given that I have successfully completed the supervisory hours required, I am capable of providing clinical supervision to both candidates for LPC and LCSW.
About Me
