About Karen
Karen Lakritz is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 30 years as a psychotherapist. She brings long experience supporting people facing anxiety, depression, grief, addiction, and mood disorders. Karen’s tone is warm and direct, and she aims to make therapy understandable and manageable for busy families and adults.
She has worked with people coping with severe bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and with those whose substance use is linked to loneliness.
Background and approach
Karen also understands challenges faced by people who are non-neurotypical; she mentions a mild stutter and some dyslexia in her own history and uses that perspective in clinical work. Her style blends respect and empathy with clear expectations. Sessions focus on practical steps, coping skills, and honest conversation.
She listens first, then helps people choose strategies that fit their life and goals. Karen uses a mix of cognitive behavioral tools, acceptance-based ideas, attachment-informed thinking, and client-centered listening. She helps people build daily habits, manage strong emotions, and shift unhelpful thinking patterns.
Many clients bring issues such as relationship strain, parenting stress, sleep and eating problems, career doubts, or problems with control and communication. She works with adults in Florida and accepts international clients by remote sessions. Therapy can be a short-term focused plan or a longer process, depending on what a person needs and wants to change.
Therapeutic approaches and how they work online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, then choose actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, avoidance, and stress when someone wants to take practical steps toward a meaningful life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on spotting unhelpful thinking and changing behaviors that keep problems going; it is often used for anxiety, depression, sleep issues, and coping with mood swings. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns and helps people build more supported ways of relating to others, which can help with intimacy, abandonment concerns, and communication problems.Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. Karen will collaborate with each person to figure out which methods match their goals, preferences, and daily life. Sessions are shaped together so tools are useful and realistic rather than abstract exercises.
Online sessions make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. Video calls let you keep face-to-face conversation without travel, phone sessions work when bandwidth is limited, and live chat or text messaging can be used for brief check-ins or when writing is easier. These options offer flexibility for scheduling, quick follow-ups, and different ways to practice skills between sessions.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Bipolar disorder
- Depression
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English
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