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Services:

 

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Individual
Therapy

 

 

Services include:

 

  • Individual Counseling

  • Adolescent & Women's Issues

  • Issues specific to Military Families

  • Jungian Depth Psychotherapy

  • Sandtray Therapy Sessions (available upon request)

  • Specialties: Life Transitions; Transformation; Anxiety/Depression; Bereavement/Grief, Trauma, Loss; Fertility/IVF; Relationship Counseling from a Jungian Perspective

  • Long-Distance Sessions by phone are available
  • Face-to-face support groups, as well as online support groups

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Treatment for:

 

  • anxiety, fears, child and adolescent development, depression, relationship issues, life coaching, loss & grief, trauma and PTSD, dream work, life questions, spirituality, fertility & IVF support, and other issues.

 

Appointments are generally weekly and last for 50-60 minutes. 90-minute sessions are also available. Payment is required at the time of session; 24-hour cancellation is required.
 
  • Treatment Orientation: Psychodynamic, Jungian, Cognitive Therapy, Play & Sandtray Therapy
  • Modalities: Individual Counseling, Sandtray Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Dream Work

 

Fees:

  • 50-60 minute sessions: $150
  • 1/2 sessions available for $75
  • Please note I do not work directly with insurance companies; however, I provide a statement that allows most (if not all) of my clients to get reimbursed by their insurance companies.

 

You may visit my Psychology Today page for further information:

 

 

Sandtray Therapy

 

Sandplay is an expressive therapy used with children, adolescents, adults, families, couples and groups.  Miniature images, sand, and water are used in a tray of sand to create patterns and worlds. The sandplay process promotes self-expression and can be used for transformation and healing. Karina offers individual sandtray sessions, and facilitates sandtray therapy groups.

 

When talking doesn’t help …

 

The classic image that comes to mind when you think of counseling is a psychiatrist sitting in a comfortable chair, notebook and pen in hand, and the patient lying on a sofa, talking non-stop about their early childhood experiences. This is because it has long been thought that the best way to deal with a problem, or even know the problem, is to talk about it. That’s the common narrative, and it’s true to a great extent. But sometimes, a person can’t talk about it. Can’t open up. Can’t deal with the pain in any way but to hide it away or keep it locked. That’s when the experts know words are useless. What this person needs is, to express herself some other way.

 

The father-daughter relationship has a remarkable history, illustrated in literature, art, and rituals of both ancient and modern society. Yet, contrasted with other parent-child relationships, the father-daughter dyad has attracted limited attention.

 

This dissertation explores the phenomenological experience of witnessing six women express their life stories through sandplay. The sand worlds reveal the daughter’s archetypal reflections of her father, including the early death of father, a loss that occurred when the woman was a young adult. This study investigates whether common images arise in sandplay with adult women whose fathers died prematurely, and whether there are commonalities in how these women perceive intimate relationships.

 

Sandplay involves primal affects, and connects human beings with their childlike processes, opening the psyche to a realm that may not be available through other, verbal means. Jung calls this “the childhood aspect of the collective psyche,” but it is not confined to childhood, rather it exists at all stages of life (Stewart, 1995, p. 376). In the context of this research, sandplay opens up a dialogue between woman and researcher that is fertile with imagination and metaphor.

 

The witness provides the woman a shelter in which to create her sand world, and in this creation, the essence of a woman’s story emerges like tactile chapters from her personal chronicle. This leads to an organic dialogue that flows without the need for applied pressure from the researcher. As the witness sits beside the woman, acknowledging and valuing the world that has materialized, a participation mystique is formed.

 

The unconscious, a storehouse of primitive fantasies and memories, can be “a terrifying place in the mind until there is the therapeutic witness who values its discovery” (Goodman & Meyers, 2012, p. 15). Contained by this uncommon mode of togetherness, one may feel protected and supported. This dissertation concludes that sandplay in the presence of a compassionate witness may serve as a powerful ritual in healing and transformation.

 

Keywords: Archetype, Daughter, Emergence, Father, Images, Sandplay, Transformation, Witness

 

Doctoral Dissertation/

Research

We all deserve a tribe...

Girls Groups!

This is an amazing, safe, and creative space for your adolescent daughter. It is also a confidential space, with other like-minded girls, to share and process common stressors in middle school. Cell phones go away (temporarily), and nothing is shared on social media. You're simply free to be who you are, to share whatever is on your heart, and to receive the support you deserve.

 

As the group leader, Dr. Karina will help to build strength, resilience, self-acceptance, self-esteem and transformation. This girls groups is particularly excellent for girls who lean towards introversion, girls who struggle with the trends of popularity and social media influences, girls who might think differently from the social cliques, and girls who perhaps spend more time in their own thoughts.

 

Dr. Karina is a licensed psychotherapist in the state of Virginia, she has a doctorate in Depth Psychology, and she also has decades of experience teaching adolescents and helping them to thrive in the world! She has a background in Theater, so she may incorporate a creative exercise or two into our groups. Come be a part of this awesome opportunity! 

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Location is 133 East Main Street, Purcellville, Virginia. Please contact me for pricing. 

See you soon!

    Karina

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