A Day in the Light Photography
I have always, for as long as I can remember, been fascinated by stories. An avid reader from age 3, I devoured books and magazines with an expansive curiosity. Fiction, encyclopedias (remember those?), even my father’s Newsweek magazines. I wanted to know everything.
But what I wanted to know about the most was people. Why do we act the way do? How do we affect each other? When I do this, what do you do in response? And when you do that, what does it make me feel?
I wrote fiction for a long time, from childhood through young adulthood. Always stories about people, relationships, love, heartache, introspection. It was how I processed my own confusion but also how I tried to understand others.
Now, as a therapist, I’m still all about stories, but not as the storyteller. Your stories are front and center, and I’m the listener, the receiver, the witness, and your guide.
With rapt attention, curiosity, and compassion, I help you make sense of the past, breathe and heal in the present, and shape your imagined future, so you can live out the story you most want to be told.
Karel Chan, LPC, LMHC, lives in Vancouver, WA. She has dedicated her life to personal and spiritual growth and lives by tenets of mindfulness, curiosity, compassion, and determination. In addition to her therapy practice, she runs a knitting company for design and teaching, cares for an incredibly special dog named Willa, and tends to the mind through Vipassana meditation.
Portland State University
Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, 2013
Haverford College
Bachelor of Arts in English w/ Creative Writing Concentration, 2004
Completed 10-day Vipassana silent meditation course at Northwest Vipassana Center, Oct 2024
Certificate in Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy from The Embody Lab, Feb 2024
Completed Power of Awareness Mindfulness Training Program from Sounds True, Dec 2021
Oregon license C4296
Washington license LH60678841