Karen's Background

Karen Sussan, LMHC, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and EMDR Certified Therapist with nearly 30 years of experience in psychotherapy and chaplaincy. Her work is grounded in a holistic, client-centered outlook shaped by a deep concern for human suffering and a belief in each person’s inherent capacity for healing and transformation. Drawing from her experience in private practice and hospital-based chaplaincy, she brings a broad and integrative perspective to teaching that emphasizes common humanity, dignity, and the therapeutic relationship as a conduit for meaningful change.

Karen has specialized training in trauma-informed psychotherapy, including EMDR, and has focused in recent years on working with trauma, pain, and medical issues. Her clinical experience includes complex grief and loss, postpartum concerns, medical trauma, chronic pain and medical conditions, and medical phobias. She continues to expand her understanding through ongoing study, including current learning around preverbal trauma, attachment, emotional regulation, and the somatic dimensions of early relational experiences. These interests inform her teaching with an emphasis on depth, integration, and ethical responsiveness to human suffering.

Karen completed her graduate education at the Fordham Graduate School of Social Services and holds certificates as an EMDRIA Certified EMDR Therapist (2024) and an ACPE Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy Trainer (2019). As an instructor, she draws upon her long-standing commitment to lifelong learning, trauma-informed care, and spiritually integrated psychotherapy, offering learners a thoughtful, grounded approach to integrating theory, practice, and personal formation.


Content & Course Format:

The SIP training program is a multi-disciplinary, inter-spiritual, multi-racial community of persons gathered for education, connection, and formation in the work of spiritually integrated psychotherapy. It serves licensed and pre-licensed mental health professionals (i.e., counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, pastoral counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, addiction specialists, and more), as well as graduate students in any of those disciplines who seek to explore the ways spirituality, religion, and the search for meaning influence their own lives and the lives of their clients.



For more on current trainings and the core curriculum click here.