About Karen

 I'm Karen Carnabucci. Let's start with the credentials and the titles: MSS, LCSW, TEP, working as  a trainer, psychotherapist, coach, consultant and author who employs traditional, contemporary and alternative models to work with people to solve problems, make decisions, expand creativity and find inner peace.

I have a lifelong interest in alternative health and mind-body psychotherapies and have practiced and taught experiential learning and healing methods in a variety of settings locally, regionally and nationally since 1989.

Here's my story:

As early as the 1940s, my mother started a small natural health business, embracing whole foods, brown bread and alternative foods like tofu and yogurt. My parents raised goats for milk, and there were a few backyard chickens, two beehives and a large organic vegetable garden.

Sadly, my mother’s interest in natural health was not able to protect her from a serious mental illness which painfully affected  our family life. I resolved to learn all I could about the dimensions of health to understand why people lost their way and how to find and maintain health in mind, body and spirit.

For many years, I wrote extensively about health, the creative arts and family life as an award-winning journalist with the daily newspaper in Lancaster, Pa.  Eventually my  personal growth journey led me to change careers to help others.

To make an appointment with Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP, or to inquire about her services, click here.

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Education

In addition to formal studies at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College,  where Karen  received her master's degree in clinical social work, she attended the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, Rhinebeck, N.Y., and the Howell Centre for Psychodrama and Sociodrama, Barnstable, England.

She has had the great good fortune to study closely with Zerka Moreno, the widow and collaborator of J.L. Moreno, the European physician who developed psychodrama. Through the years she has had the opportunity to learn from a variety of highly regarded spiritual teachers,  healers, energy specialists and other practitioners.

In 2009, she became certified in Family and Systemic Constellations and Systemic Integrative Therapy with advanced training from Heinz Stark of the Stark Institute, Germany, and the Hellinger Center in Bethesda, Md.



Books & articles

Karen is the author of:

• Show and Tell Psychodrama: Skills for Therapists, Coaches, Teachers and Leaders.

She is the co-author of  two books:

• Integrating Psychodrama and Systemic Constellation Work: New Directions for Action Methods, Mind-Body Therapies and Energy Healing with the late Ron Anderson
• Healing Eating Disorders with Psychodrama and Other Action Methods: Beyond the Silence and the Fury with Linda Ciotola.

She has contributed chapters to professional books and articles about trauma, the creative arts therapies, addiction and other clinical topics for print and online publications, including Psychodrama Network News, Many Voices, Healing Magazine, Counselor, D&A News, The Fix and others.

Credentials

Karen is a licensed clinical social worker and a nationally board-certified trainer, educator and practitioner in psychodrama, sociometry and group psychotherapy.

She is certified as a Family and Systemic Constellations facilitator by Heinz Stark's Stark Institute for Systemic Integrative Therapy in Germany and has studied with Dan Booth Cohen, Francesa Mason Boring, Edward Lynch, Mark Wolynn, Suzi Tucker, Carolyn Zahner, Bill Mannle and Gerda Swearengen.

She also is certified with Therapeutic Spiral International, an organization that trains professionals in safe experiential treatment for survivors of trauma and has been a member of action trauma teams in Pennsylvania, Maine, Illinois, Wisconsin, Maryland and Virginia.

Before opening her practice in 1995, she worked as a therapist for Caron Treatment Centers, an internationally recognized chemical dependency treatment center in Wernersville, Pa., and other clinical settings in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Current

Karen is founder of the Lancaster School of Psychodrama and Experiential Psychotherapies in Lancaster, Pa.

She  taught as an adjunct instructor at Gateway Technical College and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha, Wis., ; was invited guest faculty for the Trauma Counseling II graduate class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; and has taught continuing education classes for social workers at Bryn Mawr College.

Professional recognition includes the Hannah Weiner Award and the David A. Kipper Scholar's Award, both from the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama.

She helped organize the North American Systemic Constellations Conferences in past years and is active in the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama as a consulting editor for its journal and served on the planning committee for ASGPP's 2020 conference in Chicago.

She frequently presents on personal growth and professional development topics with special interest in trauma, addiction, spirituality, intuition, creativity, self care for helping professionals, the whole person approach to health and the use of the creative arts in healing and health.