Let’s cultivate mental wellness together.
Meet the Therapist
Karen D. Kriger, MS, LMFT
My husband, Greg, and I are an online-dating success story. We have been married for nearly 11 years and have two energetic boys and one much-loved cat. As a family, we play a lot of Uno and enjoy going on hikes and adventures in the Topeka area. I love to beautify things and am happiest when I have a project to work on.
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family therapist with my masters degree from Friends University. As an undergraduate alum of the University of Kansas, you’ll find me cheering for the Jayhawks, especially during basketball season.
My approach to counseling is integrative and collaborative and has been shaped primarily by Family Systems, brain-based and Narrative therapies. This means that we will work together to tell your story by looking at your family and personal history and your connection to your Self, your body and others.
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
Cultivating Wellness
Surviving: “continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances.”
Thriving: “to grow or develop well or vigorously; to prosper or flourish.”
The ability to survive "accidents, ordeals or difficult circumstances (i.e., trauma) is a gift and absolutely essential to our lives. But sometimes we get stuck, and are satisfied with being able to manage and contain the difficulties we encounter. We think that simply surviving is how our lives are meant to be lived. You are meant for more…
You are meant to thrive.
Every life circumstance carries the potential to grow your health, resilience and sense of Self. “When we learn to move through suffering, rather than avoid it, then we greet it differently. We become willing to let it teach us… Suffering becomes something other than a nuisance or curse to be evaded at all costs, but a way into deeper fulfillment” (Henri J.W. Nouwen, 2001, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing, xvi). Much like growing any living thing, cultivating wellness requires courage, effort and attention. And it is so worth it.
Sometimes we need someone to work alongside us to grow inner wellness . This is why Evergrow exists.