Welcome to Heal Your Early Imprints: About Karen

About Karen Melton

I worked as a counselor for 10 years, and a psychotherapist in training for 5 years, in England before moving to the U.S. in 1997. I supervised counselors, agency workers, and mental health professionals for 13 years. Over 15 years I also developed a wide range of group facilitation experiences and skills, and designed and facilitated my own training’s for organizations in the caring professions, including Social Services.

I completed the Diploma in Humanistic Psychology in 1990 - a training in humanistic psychology and group facilitation. I then took a 9 month women’s spirituality training, and later on, a 2 year Tantra training. Since 1997 I have been training in Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology with prominent leaders in this field. This is the study of what happens to us in the womb, during our birth, and shortly after birth. I offer a practical understanding of how early experiences affect us as adults. I have a Certification in Prenatal & Birth Therapy.

I am able to facilitate the safety required to change behaviors that are no longer working, while installing new resources. I have powerful tools to help you explore, understand and overcome limitations, and can teach you new relationship skills that will lead you towards a deeper sense of connection, and love and happiness in relating.

Training & Individual Practice:

1982: Trained in counseling with a youth counseling agency (Off the Record, Swindon, England). Worked as a youth counselor for 3 years, supervised other counselors for 2 years.

1983: Founding member, counselor and supervisor of other counselors of a rape crisis line for 3 years.

1985 – 1997: In private practice as a counselor for 7 years.

1990: Completed the Diploma in Humanistic Psychology, sponsored by Bath University.

1991: Completed the Women’s Mysteries – a 9 month training in women’s spirituality and healing practices.

1992: Completed the third year of a psychotherapy training with Bath Center For Psychotherapy & Counseling (B.C.P.C.), England, after which I practiced psychotherapy for 5 years, and continued to practice counseling, before I moved to the U.S. to train in Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology & Health in 1997.

1995-1997: Took a 2 year training in the Art of Tantra

1997 – present (in the U.S.):
Pre & Perinatal Psychology Training: I took many training workshops with Dr William Emerson including his extensive training in how to work with early shock imprints, and a workshop on “Healing Shock in Babies”. I completed Dr Castellino’s Prenatal & Birth Therapy Training, his advanced “Working with Double Binds” training and two Practitioner Training's. I’ve also assisted Dr Castellino on numerous occasions in Womb Surround Process Workshops, and continue to do so.

2006: Cert. Prenatal and Birth Therapy

Group Facilitation Skills - Overview and Experience:

I have facilitated and co-facilitated groups in many different settings since 1989, including:

Three 9 month therapy groups for sexually abused women.
An ongoing process group for the staff in a mental health community (The Richmond Fellowship, Bath, England)
“How to Parent Our Sons” workshops.
Teams, groups and organizations with challenging group dynamics in need of skilled outside facilitation.
An ongoing “Group Facilitation Skills” training for Social Workers in Bath, England.
Non-directive groups for young people/teenagers.

I designed and facilitated the following two training courses in the U.K. for Social Services, Mental Health Community Workers, the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, and other organizations in the caring professions:

Working with Sexual Abuse Survivors, and
Boundaries: Limiting or Liberating?

Throughout these years, from 1982 until the present, I have taken many personal growth workshops, both in persuit of professional training and personal healing and integration.

My ‘real’ training began in the womb 50 yeas ago. My deepest wound happened in the womb at 5 weeks old, and has profoundly affected my life. I began healing my core prenatal wound in my twenties, and have now embraced my Little One (prenate), which contributes to a feeling of well being and integration, and to a vast reduction in terror levels. My healing journey has given me a deep and personal understanding of how much womb and birth experiences effect ones life. I know first-hand that it is possible to heal from a traumatic and/or shocking prenatal experience.

I am currently in private practice in Sebastopol, working in the field of healing and prevention of prenatal and birth trauma. I work individually and in small groups called Womb Process Workshops with adults, and offer baby centered family work for babies with early difficulties or trauma. My Enchanted Beginning’s program offers support to parents preparing for pregnancy and conscious conception, and for parents who are already pregnant and wishing to explore their own early conditioning. My intention is to support couples to make clear parenting choices that are not clouded by their own early experiences, and the parenting that they received themselves. It is natural for our own prenatal and birth experiences to arise when we contemplate and enter into pregnancy and parenthood ourselves.

I am in the process of writing a book that will contribute to the field of prenatal and perinatal psychology, in which I show how early developmental experiences affect all aspects of life, particularly bonding and attachment styles, relationships and health.

I am able to hold people in their deepest places with presence, sensitivity and authenticity. I am happily married, and am a mother and a grandmother.

Contact Karen Melton: 707 829 7816 starbear@sonic.net

All images used are from Marija Gimbutas' The Language of the Goddess

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Resources: Links | Flyers | Bibliography |

Writings: Karen's Writings | The Vulnerable Prenate