Karen Rowlee, M.S
Marriage and Family Therapy
(206) 241-0971
Go to the numbered paragraphs that address your specific interests:
1) Background,Therapist Style, Symptom Relief (Hope)
2) I "Get It"! (You are not alone . . .)
3) Your Needs (Individual, Marital, Parenting, Step)
4) Child Needs -PlayTherapy/PCIT
5) Adolescent Needs (Plus Personal Note-Divorce, Remarriage, & "Step" Adjustment)
6) Pre-Marital Counseling (Marriage Prep/Prepare-Enrich)
7) Hope (Feeling Hopeless?)
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1) Background, Therapist Style, Symptom Relief:
Having accrued a wide range of family, parenting, interpersonal, career, and educational experiences, clients have found my style of therapy down-to-earth, comfortable, genuinely caring; and, most of all – helpful! As a result of working together, clients have felt relieved to experience symptom reduction in the following areas: relational strain, ineffective communication, destructive fighting patterns, sexual distress, parenting dilemmas, stress overload, anxiety/panic, depression, short-fused anger, guilt & shame, trauma effects from tough circumstances such as abuse, disappointing friendships, and family-of-origin issues to name a few.
2) I "Get It!": I "get" how difficult and pain-filled our lives are having suffered circumstances we didn’t get to vote on leaving us emotionally wounded, confused, and/or extremely mad. We also suffer consequences from some choices we did get to vote on. Exhausted and overwhelmed, life can feel like we are on a treadmill going no where. I am convinced we can recover and move beyond what happened to us as well as from what we think are unrecoverable mistakes. It feels and is liberating to get unbound by our past. Therapy is about figuring out the "How-To’s" that specifically address your concerns for your situation. Having suffered some of my own "stuff" as a younger person, I have dedicated my life to getting through, over, and beyond some "stuff" to get to the kind of life I’d rather be experiencing. Hence, my passion to help others do the same!
I caringly urge you to not carry all this "stuff" on your shoulders every day for the rest of your life. The negative weight of this "stuff" affects our attitudes, our outlook on life, our choices, our health, and the quality of our relationships at home, school, and work. You don’t have to carry this "stuff" alone . . . Therapy helps lighten and hopefully eliminate your burden and free up more room in your life for more positive and new experiences. I join you in wanting a change, a turning point for your life and am very glad you are here at our website looking for hope and answers. . There is nothing we can’t talk about and work through together.
3) Your Needs: It is important to me that your needs as an individual, a mate, a parent, a step-parent, or a single-parent are attended to well and that counseling is practical and useful to benefit your daily life. We will thoughtfully explore effective ways to get through; or, better yet overcome what bothers you personally as well as with significant others. (Select Prepare/Enrich for details on pre-marital/marital/co-habitating counseling).
4) Child Needs - Play Therapy/PCIT: Comprehensively trained in Play Therapy and Parent-Child Interaction Training (PCIT), I help to provide children with a way to work out their own hard-to-handle situations and confusing emotions as a result of life transitions such as: divorce, remarriage, step siblings, challenging diagnoses (ADD/ADHD, ODD, impulse control issues, social issues), grief, anger, and loss of loved ones to name a few. Parent coaching is available for parents wanting more tools to improve communication and connectedness including fun ideas to increase your family’s experience of "family". (Select Play Therapy or PCIT for more details about child therapy services).
5) Adolescent Needs: they need a place to openly work out how to grow their unique identity in their unique social scene at school, in the neighborhood, or in their family dynamic. Adolescents struggle to "belong" in schools socially divided by music, dress, athletics, academics, drugs, party scene, or groups they hang with. Absent from pressure or judgment, I love to discover the heart, mind, strengths, and giftedness of young people trying to figure this kind of "stuff" out.
Personal Note: I have been privileged to love, support, and be challenged by my own three children and three step-children as they processed through the rigors of adolescent development. I know first hand the hardships, disappointments, angers, and emotional pain in suffering the effects of divorce, remarriage, the adjustment period with step-parents/step-siblings and a myriad of other unsuspecting challenges children, pre-teens, and teens face in these types of situations. I hope to offer my clients a fresh personal perspective with real insights into these kinds of family dynamics. Additionally, I served on the Child & Adolescent therapy team at Valley City Counseling in Auburn, WA for nearly two years. It was a privilege to work with teens and their parents as they learned to navigate a developmentally and culturally challenging stage of life.
6) Pre-Marital Counseling: I offer a nice sequence of Marriage Prep sessions using Prepare/Enrich by Life Innovations and other evidence-based tools. In this era of unimaginable rates of separation and divorce, TurningPoint Counseling LLC seeks to prepare and equip couples with tools to build a strong foundation with which to construct a lasting fulfilling marriage. Our motto is:
Wedding day "prep" prepares you for a beautiful day; "Marriage Prep" prepares you for a beautiful life!
We will schedule as many sessions as you desire prior to your wedding date. This investment in your marriage is pivotal to increasing the quality of marriage you want after the wedding and honeymoon. We will work together as you grow individually and together towards a wonderful committed life of love and fulfillment. (Call for more details and/or Select Prepare/Enrich for details on pre-marital/marital counseling).
7) Hope: You might think there is no hope and that your story will never change. Don’t believe it! There is Hope! There are Answers! Together we will sort it out, acquire some understanding, re-connect with your strengths, explore solutions like "Do-Overs", and add useful tools to equip yourself with relational skills to boost your current status of relationships.
The hardest part is in making the first call. After you do, it will be much easier. By calling, you are saying to yourself that it's time to have a better experience of life for you and your family. One day, you most likely will say, "I'm so glad I did" versus the possibility of regretfully saying, "I wish I had".
I am looking forward to meeting you . . .
You can reach me, Karen Rowlee at 206-241-0971 or kerowlee@comcast.net
Credentials
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