About Karen Reid
Clinical Psychologist
I first qualified as an early years teacher and later specialised in neurodiversity and specific learning difficulties. This led me to complete Honours and Master’s degrees in Educational Psychology, working closely with young people and their families. Ten years later, I went on to complete a Master’s in Clinical Psychology at the University of Southern Queensland.
I am a registered Clinical Psychologist. My career began in teaching and learning support, then progressed to directing a multi-disciplinary team of therapists involved in neurodiversity assessments and designing intervention programs for children. Over time, my focus shifted toward supporting adults, particularly in the area of trauma and developmental trauma.
After immigrating to Australia and working with Education Queensland, I established my private practice in 2009 at St Andrew’s Medical Centre in Toowoomba.
Today, my passion lies in helping adults overcome the impact of trauma, adversity, and neglect so they can live more meaningful and connected lives. To support this work, I am a registered EMDR Consultant and EMDR Trainer, as well as a Certified IFS Therapist with Level 3 training and approval as an IFS Clinical Consultant.
I draw on a variety of therapies depending on client needs, including Schema Therapy, CBT, Narrative Therapy, and ACT, alongside EMDR and IFS. I have also enjoyed roles as a casual lecturer and supervisor at the University of Southern Queensland.
Currently, I provide supervision for training psychologists and consultation for registered therapists in a collaborative space where I also continue to learn and grow. I thoroughly enjoy offering IFS Introductory Training, EMDR Facilitation, and EMDR Training with Graham Taylor through Therapist Training.
My area of interest is helping adult clients overcome the effects of trauma, adversity, and neglect to lead a meaningful life.
Specific therapy Models I integrate in my therapeutic work.
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) – a therapy for trauma, phobias, grief, and other difficulties that takes resolves the maladaptive thinking and feeling of the past and integrates the adaptive knowing about oneself to facilitate improved engagement with oneself and the world.
IFS Therapy (IFS) – A mindfulness therapy that encourages the moving towards our internal world to explore and listen to our inner voices. This provides a platform for healing and self-compassion. It facilitates access to our own inner wisdom and knowing needed for healing the internal world and external relationships.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) – focuses on the acceptance of emotions and awareness of thoughts while holding one’s values close to select aligned behaviours and actions.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – helps people understand the relationships between thinking patterns, behaviour patterns and emotions, and to make changes to behaviour and thinking habits to improve emotional well-being.
Schema Therapy – This therapy integrates a number of therapeutic models namely CBT, Gestalt therapy and psychodynamic therapies to helps people identify and address unhelpful, lifelong patterns of thoughts and behaviour and take on new more helpful ways of thinking and behaving in the world to improve everyday functioning.
Mindfulness Based Therapies – teach people to focus deliberately on the present moment, and change the common habit of spending most of life either re-living the past or worrying about the future.
