Life & Work with Karin Draper of Laguna Hills, CA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Karin Draper.

Hi Karin, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My love for writing and storytelling has always been a staple in my life. From a young age my dream was to write fictional books, and I began telling stories before I could even hold a pencil. Writing poetry helped me navigate my experiences as an adolescent when I couldn’t voice my overwhelming emotions to others out loud. In college I studied journalism, interned with a national newswire in Washington D.C., and even won an award from the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) for a feature story I wrote during my sophomore year. Now, my love for writing and stories is furthered in my work as a Marriage and Family Therapist. I help people create new narratives for themselves by building the courage to hold all of their past experiences — no matter how ugly or beautiful, no matter how mundane or profound, no matter how terrifying or joyful — and then bringing in compassion for themselves where there once was shame. By validating what truly was unsafe, scary, or painful in the past we can be freed up to be in the present and to connect with a present sense of agency, joy, and peace. I use a variety of somatic approaches such as IFS (Internal Family Systems) and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to support my clients’ brains, bodies, and nervous systems in integrating their new narrative, so that they can fully live in their present realities rather than reacting from past experiences. The stories that I get to support my clients in building are infinitely more fulfilling than anything I used to write solo. I am immensely grateful to have a career that I know is my soul’s calling.

To take this one very important layer deeper, I am only a therapist today because of my own experiences of early childhood trauma. When I was 19, repressed memories came surging forward and for the first time in my life, I did not know who I was or how to move forward. In some ways, it felt like I had to burn down my old identity and then begin the slow process of rebuilding it from the ashes. Now, I have so much compassion for my young adult self who was fighting a monster that had been connected to her body, her brain, her nervous system, her sense of self, and her emotional experience for most of her life at that point. It was honestly hell at the time and I would never wish those experiences on anyone. But today I can genuinely say I am grateful for all of it — yes, even the darkest and ugliest parts — because it gave me the depth of experience and understanding that allows me to do the therapy work that I do now.

In the past 15 years that I’ve been a therapist, I’ve worked in many different settings, but supporting the healing of trauma for diverse clientele from a place of authenticity and cultural humility has always been my focus. In my current private practice in Orange County I specialize in supporting people in healing from trauma including commonly recognized forms of trauma (such as sexual assault, childhood abuse or neglect, community violence, and natural disasters,) complex or chronic trauma (such as growing up in a home with ongoing violence or parental substance abuse,) as well as less commonly recognized forms of trauma or related learned relational patterns such as people-pleasing tendencies, intimacy struggles, centering worth and identity in one’s accomplishments, perfectionism, and difficulty with being authentic or honest in relationships.

In my early career, I found myself able to get to a certain place in helping my clients with their trauma through talk therapy. They often understood their experiences and their emotions better, felt like their trauma held less power over them, held more compassion for what they had endured and what they continued to struggle with, and had tools for how to ground themselves and stay safe when they were triggered and activated. But then I found myself hitting certain blocks that processing in talk therapy just couldn’t address fully — the triggers and activation continued to happen regardless of the progress we were making in therapy. Truthfully, I felt the same within myself surrounding my own trauma history. I understood in depth how my childhood trauma had impacted me and that I “should” be able to feel relational safety or access calm now because I was no longer in danger and had agency in my daily life and relationships … but in my most painful or activating moments, I still found myself feeling anxiety and responding in ways that were clearly connected to trauma, not to my current realities.

When I began learning about different somatic modalities such as EMDR (Eye Movement Reprocessing and Desensitization) and IFS (Internal Family Systems, often more broadly referred to as parts work,) it all clicked. We can’t talk our way through healing our trauma. That might work beautifully when our prefrontal cortex (the part of our brain that functions out of logic, reasoning, and problem-solving) is fully active and in charge, but when we experience an actual or perceived threat, our prefrontal cortex goes offline and our amygdala takes over. The amygdala is much more primal and does not hold much space for nuance. Its entire job is to keep us alive, and it does so by defaulting to fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses that prioritize survival. This is why you might feel like you’ve overcome your trauma or your anxiety, but then a single trigger can send you back into a state that feels illogical or exaggerated. Thankfully, somatic therapies are able to access and reprocess memories of traumatic events that occurred while our amygdala was in charge and to then help our entire nervous system recognize that those events are not continuing to happen or at high likelihood of happening again. Somatic therapies are capable of shifting the associations our brains and bodies have connected to danger, changing what sets off our threat detection, and slowing down the switch over to the amygdala. These approaches are the missing link I was experiencing for so long in my work as a therapist as well as in myself personally.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
In my early years as a therapist before I was licensed and even several years after — for about six years total — I did in home therapy for clients in Los Angeles through a DMH agency. I absolutely loved the communities I got to work in and the families I got to work with. My heart is still deeply with them, even though I have now been living and working in Orange County since 2018. My work days ended up being very long, much longer than what a full-time job would typically entail. Many of the families I worked with were vulnerable in many ways due to SES and financial struggles, legal status, community violence, DCFS involvement, and/or systemic racism and oppression. Sometimes they had case managers or social workers who could help them with accessing resources for those specific needs, but just as often they did not. As a therapist and in particular a therapist who most regularly met with clients in their home and could literally see their particular circumstances, I couldn’t just focus on their mental health and traditional therapy. That would have been negligent and quite frankly, futile. Can someone improve their anxiety or depression when such basic needs such as food, housing, or physical safety are not addressed? I spent a lot of time finding local resources and programs to connect the families I worked with to, and this time that couldn’t necessarily be billed for or accounted for. It is what these families deserved, and I would never have chosen to do otherwise. But I did often feel like I was working multiple jobs despite only get paid (very little) for one.

The other thing I will speak to is the mental and emotional toll of being connected to such immense suffering and inequity that does not have easy solutions, but is also very systemic in nature. It can easily begin to be experienced as a moral injury. Even when you are deeply committed to your sense of purpose in advocating for, centering, and uplifting the families you work with, there are many barriers to run into when working for any agency that has to focus on numbers to stay in business. You can then broaden it out and see the barriers that agency has connected to insurance policies and limits, political leaders and the financial grants they do and don’t support, and the even larger influences that direct our political leaders. It’s very painful and frustrating to see this, to connect to your own powerlessness in changing the circumstances that your clients are powerless over and deeply impacted by. That being said, it is very important to me as both a professional and a human to identify where I can support positive change in the larger system and to contribute somehow. For my personally, I focus my advocacy efforts on immigration reform and protections for undocumented immigrants.

I don’t think that anyone who sets out to be a psychotherapist walks a smooth road, especially not when trauma is their clinical focus. A lot of us go into this field due to our personal experiences and struggles, and while it is beautiful to practice as a wounded healer, it definitely brings its own specific challenges and responsibilities. My experience is that I have to consistently do my own work as a client in order to be the best therapist I can be, as well as to live my own life most fully from a place of connection, calm, and clarity. I know that I will be most effective as a therapist when I am prioritizing balance in my personal life. The therapist nerd in me wants to fill my free time with consistent ongoing learning and podcasts and films about the impact of trauma. This is fine in moderation, but I am also consistently seeking calmer, even softer ways to enjoy my free time (which is quite limited these days with two young children.) My current go-to’s are fitting in a few pilates classes a week, when I’m with my children spending as much of that time outdoors as possible, having meaningful connection with my husband and my loved ones in whatever cracks I can find, and then after my children are asleep, beading jewelry or making my own lotion with raw shea butter and essential oils.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Laguna Hills, a few streets over from Irvine. I specialize in all things related to trauma, attachment, one’s identity and self esteem, and relational intimacy and connection. Some groups I sub-specialize in are working with other therapists and healers, high-achievers, deep feelers or highly sensitive folks, and “the strong ones” in family systems. I have significant experience working with immigrants and adult children of immigrants and the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ community. I am consistently participating in ongoing learning surrounding the experience of late-diagnosed, high-masking neurodivergent (ADHD and/or Autistic) women in order to provide neurodivergent-affirming therapy. I also really enjoy working with couples, in particular cross-cultural couples and couples in which one or both partners have trauma histories.

While I work with many clients who have a very clear understanding of how their family of origin or experiences of trauma contributed to their struggles in the present day, I work with just as many who reach out to me because they are confused as to why they are having the relational or professional problems that they do or why they feel so empty or anxious. Either way, the therapy work I do can Every person is unique and connects to themselves and their ability to heal in different ways, which is why I heavily utilize approaches that are somatic and go far beyond traditional talk therapy, including but not limited to EMDR and IFS.

There are so many experiences we might brush off or minimize as adults that are deeply distressing as children, that actually change our neural connections and associations and how our nervous system operates. For instance, a child might learn over time that no one is going to help them with their emotions, that their feelings don’t matter, and that when they cry or yell family members either become angry with them or disconnect from them. It makes sense that eventually the child would learn to repress their emotions, not talk about their feelings, and instead increase their awareness of their family members’ emotional states. This child might become an adult who is disconnected from their own emotions, don’t know how they feel in their relationships, neglects their own needs in order to please or help others, and feels helpless when their repressed emotions burst through in bouts of anger or depression or anxiety.

I am passionate about honoring the ways our brains and bodies beautifully protected us and adapted to survive when we needed them to. I am also deeply committed to a holistic approach that honors our entire system, our humanity, even our lineages in addressing past trauma, experiencing relief, and building authentic connection to ourselves and to others. Somatic therapy approaches such as EMDR and IFS address how trauma impacts our bodies, brains, nervous systems, even our connections to ourselves and our spirituality — and how to use those same systems to heal themselves. I also believe that somatic approaches have the ability to provide relief for intergenerational trauma that is passed down, not just through experiences and parenting but also through genetics. The more research that is done surrounding epigenetics, the more that science is backing up what many indigenous groups have always known — we carry the experiences of our ancestors with us, in both their resiliency and their trauma. Historical and cultural trauma must be acknowledged. We cannot dismiss the impact of the greater collective.

I’m most proud of how my ability to help my clients experience themselves in a way they never have before, often when they release the heaviness from trauma or shame and suddenly have access to peace or self-compassion in a brand new way. I cannot adequately describe the joy I feel when I witness clients release burdens they have carried for decades. You can see the shift in their body posture, muscle tension, and facial expression. It’s a palpable energy in the room. It truly feels magical, and every single time I find myself in awe all over again of the incredible ability of our bodies, brains, and spirits to heal when provided with the correct support and environment. It’s a common experience for me to work with clients who have done a lot of therapy previously and felt stuck — perhaps they have even begun to accept that certain struggles of theirs will never go away — only to make leaps and bounds in our work together. The moments following an EMDR or IFS session when my clients express surprise at how good they feel following some really hard and powerful work — I hold those close to my heart. It never gets old, and I am so grateful to get to do this work.

I think one of the things that often does set me apart from others is that I am equal parts head and heart. I am an academic and perpetual learner and am quick to digest new information and to conceptualize the most complex cases. Bring me your hard questions and skepticism, and I will always talk through them with you and explore the nuances! I am also a deep feeler with strong intuition and sensitivity and can journey with my clients to the depths of any emotion. I continually do my own therapy work in order to ensure that I can be present with my clients in a way that is truly honoring to them and their unique experiences without smearing my own onto theirs. Due to being an intellectual as well as a soul-connected feeler, I find that I can do good therapy work with a broad range of people. I can work with male CEO’s or engineers whose daily existences impinge on high level cognition with less room for presence with emotions. Similarly, I work well with people connected to alternative healing practices or spirituality that cannot be fully explained in concrete terms or evidenced-based research, or with those who feel as though their emotions are “too big.” I respect how different people have adapted and strengthened particular traits and ways of being to pursue certain careers, to align with their values and sense of purpose in life, and to remain in connection with their loved ones and families. Yes, trauma often has a role in how we adapt, but so do so many other things, many of which are choiceful and overall admirable or even beautiful. I respect how people choose to live, their unique traits and preferences, and their priorities in their lives. This is why therapy work is such a delicate collaboration between me and my clients. Ultimately, I want to support my clients in accessing more internal space, energy, and freedom so they can more fully live the lives they want to in the ways they want to, whatever that may look like.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I probably wouldn’t describe it as luck, but I would say that I have had a lot of synchronicity and perhaps even divine intervention surrounding my work as a therapist. There have been particular opportunities that fell into my lap that were rich learning experiences and later became very significant or foundational in my overall work. For instance, I had the amazing opportunity to spend several years doing specialized training, supervision, and work with children ages 0-5 who had experienced trauma. Not only was I learning the mental health considerations and therapy approaches, but I attended a series of interdisciplinary trainings at CHLA on early childhood trauma. Even though I primarily work with adults today, understanding early childhood trauma in depth and experientially working with little ones and their family systems in the midst of it has intricately enriched my work with adults who had traumatic experiences in their early years.

The example of synchronicity I’m most grateful for, however, is how diverse my personal inner circle is and has been since my young adult years. I’m immensely grateful to have developed close friendships with many people with vastly different identities, cultural backgrounds, life experiences, and ways of living than my own. These friends not only let me in to some of their own vulnerable experiences, but cared about me enough to directly name when my own privilege or limited experiences were obscuring how I saw something or how I was showing up with them. While these conversations initially felt unpleasant or painful and I remember times of feeling defensive, I quickly saw not only the importance and validity of what was being said but that my friends did not have to make themselves even more uncomfortable in providing that emotional labor, that it was actually incredibly loving of them to try to help me see something I was missing. It would have been easier (and understandable) for them to avoid the topic and to perhaps have a less close friendship with me. Those tough conversations were always gifts, opportunities for me to learn how to see myself more honestly, to understand the human being better in front of me and perhaps some larger systems as well, and to learn how to better support people with different lived experiences than me. And most importantly to me, those conversations allowed me to stay close with these friends. There is so much about diversity that can be learned through education and reading — and we should all be utilizing these available methods of learning — but I am eternally grateful to be consistently learning through many of my closest relationships as well. They have made me a better human, and yes, a better therapist too.

Pricing:

• $275 per 60 minute individual session
• $375 per 90 minute individual session
• $300 per 60 minute couples session
• $400 per 90 minute couples session

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.OCFamilyHealing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therelationshipcounselor
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karindrapertherapy
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-draper-oc-therapist/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/karin-draper-lmft-laguna-hills

Image Credits
Matt Draper