Karen Gwaltney, LMFT
EMDR, Coaching and Psychotherapy in Pasadena and all of California
Quality therapy and coaching will help you question the “shoulds.”
Shoulds are stories we are told that become the stories we tell ourselves — stories that come from our families, teachers, peers, our religion and government leaders and broader culture. They mean to keep us safe by telling us how to compete, defend, be self-sufficient and win, or to serve, to stay quiet, put our needs last, and be smaller.
These stories confine us. They stop us from connecting with ourselves and with each other authentically. They shame us for being human.
We submerge our wants, ignore our needs, and cover up our emotions until we don’t recognize them anymore. So when it’s time to live your truth and go after what you really want — you either can’t identify it or don’t feel free to pursue it.
I’m Karen Gwaltney, and I use therapy (California only) and coaching (online, anywhere) to help people question the ‘shoulds’ and uncover the values that are true to them.
The key to creating real, lasting change in your life is to learn how to come home to yourself. When you learn how to recognize your needs and wants and how to support your nervous system, you can be more fully alive—not too exhausted, depleted, depressed, or angry to make conscious choices about your next step.
When you know how to come home to yourself, when you have the tools to feel safe enough, you’ll communicate better, hold your boundaries more firmly, and have healthier relationships. You can know that you’re contributing to life, and that you belong here.
How We Can Work Together
Therapy (for California Residents Only)
Unearth the stories from your past causing pain in your present. Traditional therapy excels at finding where those stories came from, why they’re there, and how they served you in the past. When we find the root story, we can start to uproot it.
Coaching (Online for Anyone)
In coaching, we focus on your present and future — troubleshooting blocks, gaining communication skills, replacing old patterns with healthier ones, role-playing and developing scripts for difficult interactions.
Ideas that inform my approach
I love Brene Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability, Carol Gilligan and Judy Chu’s research into the moral and social development of girls and boys, and Pia Mellody’s work on codependence and functional (vs. dysfunctional) parenting and relating. I’ve trained in Restoration Therapy with Terry Hargrave as well as Relational Life Therapy with Terry Real, and I’ve been studying the Enneagram since 2018 and use it in my work because of how helpful it is for both me and you to understand you, your motivations, strengths, and pitfalls.
Spirituality also informs my approach. I unapologetically believe that consciousness continues beyond physical human death. I believe all life has purpose, and that a life dedicated to cultivating love and compassionately managing the fear that is an inevitable part of human existence is a life well lived.
My faith journey has brought me from certainty to uncertainty. I wanted to live in the ‘above it all’ bliss of Christian certainty, and it hurt me beyond what I thought I could handle to have that certainty taken away. But I think the point is to be here with the uncertainty, in your body on this planet, and to be as fully alive and as authentically yourself as you can be. Mental health is a commitment to reality at all costs.
Areas of Specialty
Deconstructing Evangelical Christianity & Religious trauma
Conscious Couples Communication, Conscious Uncoupling and Co-Parenting
Codependence
Near Death Experience aftermath/processing
EMDR for relationship trauma, ruminating or anxiety after a traumatic event, dispelling negative or self-critical thought patterns.
