About Karen
Karen Contardo is a licensed mental health counselor with 15 years of experience helping people cope with anxiety, stress, depression, and major life changes. She focuses on practical support for relationship concerns, self-esteem, parenting pressures, sleep and eating struggles, and grief. Karen aims to make therapy straightforward and useful for everyday life.
She listens without judgment and adapts her approach to each person's needs. Sessions focus on real problems and concrete steps clients can try between meetings.
Background and approach
Karen draws on evidence-based tools to help people notice unhelpful patterns and build more workable habits. Her background includes long clinical work in Washington and many hours supporting clients through midlife shifts, career decisions, chronic illness, and parenting strain. That experience shaped a calm, steady style that balances empathy with practical strategies.
In session she blends Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, client-centered techniques, and cognitive behavioral ideas to fit what the client prefers. That can mean practicing new ways of noticing thoughts, testing small behavior changes, or clarifying values to guide choices. People often come for help with anxiety, loneliness, or feeling stuck.
Karen helps them set realistic goals and break tasks into smaller steps. The focus is on manageable progress rather than quick fixes.
How Karen’s Approaches Work Online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people notice thoughts and feelings without getting controlled by them, then take actions that match what matters. It is useful for anxiety, depression, and feeling stuck. Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and empathy so clients can find their own solutions and build self-trust. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy looks at the link between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and uses small experiments to change unhelpful patterns.Deciding which approach to use is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, try different techniques, and adjust the plan over time. Together they pick methods that fit the person's needs and daily life rather than forcing a single way of working.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video is good for a full session with visual cues, phone works well when bandwidth is low or for a focused check-in, and messaging lets people send updates or brief reflections between meetings. These options help fit therapy around work, family, or health demands while keeping the focus on practical changes and steady progress.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Career difficulties
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Parenting issues
- Sleeping disorders
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- Washington
- Languages
- English
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