About Us

Dr Karen Treisman, MBE, is an award-winning Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist, organizational consultant, trainer, author, and trauma specialist.

Please see below for more about Dr Treisman’s experiences, qualifications and books.

Check out Karen’s amazon page sharing all of her resources.

Amazon Shop

Karen is the bestselling Author of several books/ workbooks, including:

  • The therapeutic treasure box for Developmental Trauma
  • The Treasure Box for Creating Trauma-informed Organizations
  • Trauma informed health care
  • Seven children’s workbooks, and
  • Five sets of therapeutic card decks (trauma, strengths, feelings and sentence completion, parenting patchwork, regulating, grounding and soothing, trauma and stress).

Karen was awarded the 2018 Psychology Professional of the Year Award for Excellence in Attachment and Trauma and Youth Psychology Professional of the Year in 2020. She received an MBE for outstanding services for children on the Queen’s 2020 Honours list.

Download Dr Karen Treisman’s bio →

Experience

Dr Karen Treisman has worked in the National Health Service and children’s social services for several years. Karen has also worked cross-culturally in both Africa and Asia with groups ranging from former child soldiers and asylum-seeking young people to those living with HIV/AIDS and survivors of the Rwandan Genocide.

Karen has extensive experience in the areas of trauma, adversity, loss, child protection, fostering, adoption, refugee and asylum-seeking contexts, trafficking, and attachment. She works clinically using a range of therapeutic approaches with families, systems, and children in or on the edge of care, unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people, and adopted children.

She is also a supervisor, reflective practice facilitator, expert witness for court, creative consultant, and trainer. Karen also specialises in supporting teams, organizations, and systems to become, and sustain, adversity, culturally, and trauma-informed, infused, and responsive in practice (at language, policy, culture, and practice levels).

Karen previously worked in Milton Keynes’s and Kensington and Chelsea’s Children in Care and Fostering Services, and within the National Implementation Service for evidence-based interventions for “Looked After Children, Children on the Edge of Care, and Children in Custody” at the Michael Rutter Centre in the Maudsley Hospital. She also served as Clinical Lead for a court assessment and intensive intervention team for children on the edge of care and in proceedings in Islington.

Karen is an external consultant, trainer, speaker, and assessor to various UK and international local authorities, child welfare and health care teams, schools, prisons, nurseries, charities, and organizations including (currently or previously) TACT, Pause, Barnardos, AdoptionPlus, BAAT, Action Trauma, Candle Trust, Grandparents Plus, and the Fostering Network. She is also an expert witness and regularly completes assessments for court.

Additionally, Karen is an associate editor for the Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma and a reviewer for the Journal of Adoption and Fostering; she also reviews for several book publishers including Routledge and Jessica Kingsley.

Karen regularly attends and presents at local, national, and international trauma, parenting, and attachment conferences (see the Events tab on this website). She is also a TEDx speaker on the power of relationships and viewing behaviour as communication.

Training

  • EMDR
  • Narrative Therapy
  • Narrative Exposure Therapy
  • Court Work
  • Trauma Focused CBT
  • Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy
  • Video Interaction Guidance
  • Sensory Approaches
  • Theraplay
  • Testimonial Psychotherapy

In addition to holding a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, Dr Karen Treisman has completed specialist training in:

Some Personal Interests

Besides being incredibly passionate about psychology, making positive changes in the areas of trauma and beyond, and supporting organizational change, Karen loves spending time with her family and friends. She is also a keen traveller and has spent much of her life abroad, recently visiting Angola, Pakistan, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Madagascar, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, India, and many more. Karen enjoys adventure activities such as paragliding, hot air ballooning, horse riding, skydiving, and quad biking. She also loves creative hobbies including powertex, resin, acrylic pour, mosaic, collage, and glass fusion (her art can be found under the name enrichedtexturebykiki on Instagram). Karen is also a big animal lover, particularly dogs, horses, monkeys, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, and lions.

Associates

Safe Hands and Thinking Minds specialises in attachment, parenting, trauma, child protection, adoption, and fostering; however, we also work with a range of associates who are experts in wider specialities such as eating disorders, motivational interviewing, neuropsychological assessments, autism, behaviour of a sexual nature, and school-based therapy. Please contact us to enquire further.

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