Karen Gano

Karen Gano is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than three decades of counseling experience. She offers a calm, practical approach to help people navigate stress, anxiety, loss, relationship pain, and major life transitions. Karen emphasizes empowerment and steady progress, focusing on what someone can do next to feel better.

Karen combines mindfulness with client-centered and motivational styles to help people find clarity. She often uses solution-focused techniques to set small, achievable goals and trauma-focused methods when past events keep affecting daily life. Her background includes long experience as a medical social worker in emergency medicine, oncology, palliative care, and domestic abuse settings, which shaped her practical, down-to-earth style.

She works mainly with adults facing separation, divorce, career shifts, relocation, empty nest, illness, caregiver strain, and other midlife changes. Karen also supports people dealing with addiction, bipolar mood concerns, grief, low self-esteem, and compassion fatigue. Sessions aim to increase self-awareness, strengthen coping skills, and build confidence to make changes.

Her practice is goal oriented and rooted in empowerment counseling. Karen helps clients discover their voice, expand their support team, and develop tools to move from surviving to thriving. She frames progress in practical steps rather than abstract theory.

Karen holds an LCSW-C and multiple LCSW credentials and completed a Master of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh. She is based in New Mexico and brings 33 years of clinical work to each client interaction.

How Karen Uses Mindfulness and Goal-Focused Methods Online

Karen commonly blends Mindfulness Therapy with Client-Centered and Motivational Interviewing approaches. Mindfulness Therapy teaches simple practices to notice thoughts and feelings without getting swept away, which can help with anxiety, stress, and grief. Client-Centered work focuses on listening and reflecting so people feel heard and can find their own answers. Motivational Interviewing helps when someone wants to make a change but feels stuck by exploring ambivalence and building motivation.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. Karen will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t worked before. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust them as progress occurs.

If you are considering online work, confirm the session formats offered before booking. Online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life, reduce travel time, and allow shorter check-ins when needed. They can also support continuity of care during moves or schedule changes. The therapist will discuss how to structure sessions so they match daily routines and therapy goals.