Location: Camberwell

Karen Potter is a Generalist Psychologist who has been working as a psychotherapist and counsellor for over 27 years.  She developed her strong interest in and commitment to child development and working in the perinatal/infant-parent field early in her career.  She is also keenly interested in working with parents and couples.  Karen’s fundamental concern is with deepening and enhancing relationships: between couples; between infants/children/adolescents and their parents; as well as the relationship one has with him/herself.

Karen is deeply committed to supporting parents and infants from the idea of a baby in the parents’ mind, through to conceiving, pregnancy (or not) and throughout the postnatal years.  She enjoys working with parents to enhance their bond with their infant and facilitate a path to a more joyous and confident experience of parenting and family life.  Karen works with infants/toddlers and their parents to support and strengthen their relationships and promote healthy child development.

Early in her career, Karen worked at the Royal Women’s Hospital in the Neonatal Intensive and Special Care Nurseries as well as in one of the high complexity ante-natal clinics.  Her role as Counsellor/Social Worker involved providing support, counselling and advocacy for parent(s) with a premature or sick baby or whose baby died either at birth or in the nurseries.  Understanding the crucial experience for infants and mothers of physical contact during this time, Karen began exploring the method of Kangaroo Mother Care.  She was funded by the hospital to travel to Brazil to attend a conference to learn more about this method.  During this period Karen presented a paper at an Australian Association of Infant Mental Health Conference and Seminar in relation to the hypothesized experience for the infant of being in Intensive Care.

Subsequently, Karen worked at Melbourne IVF as a Counsellor to couples and individuals seeking medical support to conceive.  Karen later moved to Northern NSW where she created a private practice.  Alongside her clinical work, she was a Consultant Counsellor for Sydney IVF’s Lismore office and Infant-Parent Consultant with Family Support Network, where she provided in-home counselling to parent(s) and infants from 0-12 months, as well as facilitated groups and presented training to professionals.

Karen has been working in private practice for over 20 years now and brings to her work a wealth of knowledge and experience together with a genuine warmth, compassion and capacity to connect with people on all levels.

Karen also offers clinical supervision, mentoring and consultancy work for organisations.