Pagan Psychologist SF

Rodney G. Karr, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist who has been practicing in the San Francisco Bay area since 1975. He has over 28 years of experience with individual couple, and group psychotherapy. He utilizes a variety of therapeutic approaches including cognitive behavioral problem solving approaches, Jungian, dream work, archetypal approaches, as well as short-term and long-term approaches. Rodney G. Karr PhD grew up in Oregon within a large extended family clan. His family had maintained ancient Scott's-Irish traditions and beliefs including contact with fairy beings, ancestral spirits, and perceiving nature as alive with the spirit of the God/Goddess. He has studied various spiritual traditions over the last 30 years including Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan, Druid, Western Mysteries, Underworld and Fairy Traditions. He has been a practitioner of Druid traditions for over fourteen years. He is an initiated Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD). He is the Chief Druid of the Grove of Manannan Mac Lir; the only fully recognized OBOD Grove in California. He is also an initiated priest in R.J. Stewart's Fairy, Underworld, and Inner Temple traditions. He is a close friend, colleague, and advanced student of R.J. Stewart. (see http://www.dreampower.com ). Rodney G. Karr PhD is an up-front-out Pagan psychologist and teacher. He has supported and participated in Berkeley's Interfaith Pagan Pride Parade and Festival for the last three years. His picture appears with others upon their official brochure (see http://www.paganpride.org).

Dr. Karr rising out of Stonehenge

Dr. Karr on the poster for the Interfaith Pride Festival

Dr. Karr doing shamanic drumming at his office in San Francisco

Rodney G. Karr PhD has been a major presenter at Pantheacon for the last three years. He has facilitated and coordinated panels and workshops concerning Druid and Underworld traditions. Rodney G. Karr PhD has for the last six years been facilitating and leading circles (groups), which teach shamanistic, fairy, underworld and Druid traditions and processes. He currently facilitates three such groups through his organization called five shaman circles. The five shaman circles website at http://www.shamans-sf.org provides a great deal of history information, photos and references. It is recommended that anyone recommended in therapy with Rodney G. Karr PhD should check out his primary website at http://www.shamans-sf.org. Rodney G. Karr PhD spent twenty-two years in analysis with a Jungian analyst from the Jungian Institute in San Francisco. He therefore has a transpersonal approach to psychotherapy. Dr Karr believes that it will be advantageous for Pagans to be in psychotherapy with a Pagan psychotherapist who understands deeply and supports his clients' Pagan beliefs. He believes in a holistic and Humanistic approach to psychotherapy in which people's spiritual beliefs are part of who they are and must be included in the therapeutic process. Paganism is a lifestyle and includes a shift in how one deals with life, nature, creatures and other human beings. Therefore an aspect of Pagan psychology includes incorporating principles of intention, magic and belief into creating a manifested life that one desires. Paganism, like Buddhism, is deeply rooted in daily practices, which change and shift one's perceptions and relationships with everyone and everything.

Being a Pagan Psychologist for Dr. Karr means that he honors the individuation of each person, the diversity of various peoples and cultures, the numerous manifestations of spirit as various Gods and Goddesses of different peoples worldwide, the divinity of the feminine as well as the masculine, and the power within each person to be his/her own priest or priestess. It is his purpose with each client to facilitate their discovery of their own spiritual power and divinity within and to manifest this power externally in the world. Dr Karr, being a Jungian therapist, has the intention to help each client to connect with the many aspects of themselves including male, female, child, divine, animal, the archetypes, and the shadow. It is the Jungian belief that the purpose of therapy is to become conscious of and manifest the incredible diversity and potential within each individual. This includes the full development of one's intuitive abilities. One's physical body and sexual abilities, one's spiritual abilities, one's emotional abilities including love, compassion, sensitivity, and feeling, and one's thinking and creative abilities. In Pagan terms, this Jungian viewpoint is analogous to developing connection to the five elements Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit.