Supporting Your Well-Being Through Counseling
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, EMDR, Trauma-Informed, Mindfulness, & Attachment-based
Offering
Counseling
One beauty of being human is we have the capacity to change. We can be completely frustrated by our behavior and choices, but we never have to settle and stay there. It's not easy to grow and change, but as long as we are breathing on our own, we can do it. We need support and that is what Journey Forward is all about. Counseling is not one-size-fits-all. You need a counselor with the education, training, and style that fit your unique situation.
Counseling Focus
Karen Thacker is a Licensed Professional Counselor trained in various methods, including: EMDR, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Compassion Meditation, and Yoga.
She has extensive training in healing from trauma and navigating relationship issues. Sometimes the two are very closely tied together. Trauma, whether severe or mild, has the capacity to interfere with our ability to maintain healthy relationships. Often trauma occurs in the context of relationships. She brings knowledge, wisdom, and compassion. She will meet you where you are and journey with you on your path toward healing.
Supervision
Karen is an approved supervisor for candidates seeking licensure in Colorado. If you are interested in Supervision, email Karen to schedule an introductory session to determine if she fits your supervisory needs.
Karen Thacker, MS, LPC
I started my journey toward being a counselor as a client in 2004. A few years into my healing journey, I decided I wanted to walk alongside others who, like me, needed help reconnecting to their true selves, finding healing, and walking free on this side of heaven. I went to graduate school and earned a Master’s in Counseling. Since then, I have continued to grow and celebrate my freedom and have dedicated myself to helping others do the same. I work with clients from all different backgrounds, cultures, faiths, and orientations.
I am a certified yoga trainer with an emphasis on trauma-sensitive yoga. I have completed Tara Brach's Compassion Meditation and Radical Compassion trainings. I bring awareness of my client's internal experience into therapy through various modalities including somatic experiencing, guided meditation, yoga, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and EMDR.
In addition to offering counseling, I have been an adjunct professor at the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling at Concordia University Irvine since 2017. I love training new counselors and being part of Dr. John Townsend's program based on his Competence and Character Model. To improve my teaching, counseling, supervision, research, leadership, and advocacy skills, I started working on my PhD in 2021 at the Townsend Institute. I hope to earn my doctorate by the end of August 2024.
