About Karen
Karen Haggard is a licensed clinical social worker who helps people facing stress, anxiety, grief, depression, and relationship troubles. She brings 25 years of experience to sessions and focuses on clear, practical steps people can use right away. She listens first and adapts to each person's goals.
Conversations often include learning new ways to manage worry, improving communication, and finding daily routines that reduce overwhelm. Karen uses straightforward tools so clients can practice between sessions.
Background and approach
Karen works with people handling trauma, addiction, sleeping problems, and life transitions. She also supports those dealing with identity and intimacy-related issues, caregiver strain, chronic illness, and concerns like ADHD or bipolar mood challenges. Her work includes helping with abandonment and attachment issues when those patterns affect current relationships.
Her approach draws on methods such as acceptance and commitment strategies, cognitive behavioral techniques, attachment-focused ideas, dialectical skills, and client-centered listening. Sessions balance skill-building with attention to emotions and personal values. Karen practices in Illinois as an LCSW - licensed clinical social worker - and offers care that aims to be responsive and down-to-earth.
She helps people figure out what matters most and take manageable steps toward change. People who choose her often want a practical, empathetic partner for tough moments. She emphasizes steady progress and tools that fit real life, not abstract theory.
Evidence-informed approaches for online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings and choose actions that match their values. This approach can help with anxiety, stress, and making changes that matter. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thinking patterns and testing them with practical experiments. CBT is often used for anxiety, depression, sleep issues, and coping skills training.Finding the right approach is part of working together. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, try approaches that match those goals, and adjust as needed. This is a collaborative process where the person’s preferences shape which tools are emphasized.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different needs. Video lets people work face-to-face when that helps, while phone calls use less bandwidth and can be easier to fit into a work break. Live chat and messaging support brief check-ins or ongoing reflection between sessions. These options make it easier to get regular support and to use therapy in the rhythm of daily life.
Questions people ask
What kinds of concerns does Karen help with?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How much clinical experience does she have?
What credentials and location are listed?
Are sessions offered in other languages or to international clients?
Which session formats are available?
How does payment and cost work?
What are the first steps to begin therapy?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult 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)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Gottman Method
- Hypnotherapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Illinois, Texas
- Languages
- English
We will earn a commission if you sign up through our link, at no cost to you.