 About Karen Melton
I worked as a counselor for 10 years, and then after that as a psychotherapist in training for 5 years in England before moving to the U.S. in 1997. I supervised counselors, agency workers, and mental health professionals for 13 years. Over that 15 years I also built up a wide range of group facilitation experiences and skills, and designed and facilitated my own training’s for organizations in the caring professions, including Social Services.
I have a practice in Sonoma County, N. California healing and preventing womb, birth and bonding trauma in which I work with unborn and born babies, children, adults, and parents who want to be more conscious during the early developmental phase of parenthood. I offer Intensives from 2 days or more, and Professional Supervision for therapists, healers, etc who are coming across early developmental material in their work and don’t know how to work with it.
I trained for many years in Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology (PPN) with prominent leaders in the field as soon as I arrived in the U.S. in 1997, it was in fact my initial reason for coming here. PPN is the study of what happens to us in the womb, during our birth, and shortly after birth. I offer a practical understanding of how early experiences affect us, and I hold a strong belief that talk therapy does not reach these early places. Certified in Prenatal & Birth Therapy,I practice deep, profound, gentle, somatic work with all ages.
I am able to co-create the safe 'womb' space required to heal early imprints, and to change behaviors that are no longer working, whilst building new resources. I can teach you new relationship skills that will lead you towards a deeper sense of connection, bonding, love, choice and happiness.
Counseling/Psychotherapy/Personal Growth Training's:
1982: Trained in counseling with a youth counseling agency (Off the Record, Swindon, England). Worked as a youth counselor for 3 years, supervised other counselors for 2 years.
1983: Founding member, counselor and supervisor of other counselors of a rape crisis line for 3 years.
1985 – 1997: In private practice as a counselor for 7 years.
1990: Completed the Diploma in Humanistic Psychology, sponsored by Bath University.
1991: Completed the Women’s Mysteries – a 9 month training in women’s spirituality and healing practices.
1992: Completed the third year of a psychotherapy training with Bath Center For Psychotherapy & Counseling (B.C.P.C.), England, after which I practiced psychotherapy for 5 years, and continued to practice counseling, before I moved to the U.S. to train in Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology & Health in 1997.
1995-1997: Took a 2 year training in the Art of Tantra
1997 – present (in the U.S.):
Pre & Perinatal Psychology Training with Dr William Emerson including his extensive training in both how to work with early Shock imprints, and “Healing Shock in Babies”. I completed Dr Ray Castellino’s Prenatal & Birth Therapy Training in 2006, his advanced “Working with Double Binds” training and two Practitioner Training's. I’ve assisted Dr Castellino on numerous occasions in Womb Surround Process Workshops, and both observed and participated at the B.E.B.A. center for family healing in Santa Barbara.
2006: Certificate in Prenatal and Birth Therapy
Group Facilitation Skills - Overview and Experience:
I have facilitated and co-facilitated groups in many different settings since 1989, including:
- Three 9 month therapy groups for sexually abused women.
- An ongoing process group for the staff in a mental health community (The Richmond Fellowship, Bath, England)
- “How to Parent Our Sons” workshops.
- Teams, groups and organizations with challenging group dynamics in need of skilled outside facilitation.
- An ongoing “Group Facilitation Skills” training for Social Workers in Bath, England.
- Non-directive groups for young people/teenagers.
I designed and facilitated the following two training courses in the U.K. for Social Services, Mental Health Community Workers, the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, and other organizations in the caring professions:
- Working with Sexual Abuse Survivors, and
- Boundaries: Limiting or Liberating?
Throughout these years, from 1982 until the present, I have taken many personal growth workshops, both in pursuit of professional training and personal healing and integration.
My ‘real’ training began in the womb 54 years ago. My deepest wound happened in the womb at 5 weeks old, and has profoundly affected my life. I began healing my core prenatal wound in my early twenties, and now enjoy a feeling of well being and integration of my early life which has resulted in a vast reduction in my terror levels. My healing journey has given me a deep and personal understanding of what a huge influence womb and birth experiences have on one's life. I know first-hand that it is possible to heal from a traumatic and/or shocking prenatal experience.
I am in the process of writing a book that will contribute to the field of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology & Health, in which I show how life threatening, traumatic and shocking early developmental experiences affect us, and how we can heal from them. I am also writing a booklet entitled: How To Avoid a Cesarean Section In Your Hospital Birth. Unfortunately, I see many infants and mom’s devastated and traumatized by the effects of this far too frequent surgery.
I am able to hold people in their deepest places with presence, sensitivity and authenticity. I am happily married, a mother and a grandmother.
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