Karen Kral, M.A., LPC

Karen is a licensed psychotherapist in the state of Colorado and Certified Inner Bonding Facilitator.  She developed the new, comprehensive Inner Bonding Facilitator Training Program (IBFTP) and led the first complete training program from March, 2017 through September 2018.  At that time, she turned the reigns to the training program over to other Certified Facilitators who assisted her in the pilot program. Karen has taken on a smaller role in the IBFTP and has returned to her primary focus on individual work and small group intensives.

Prior to going into full-time practice as co-creator of CoreQuest Counseling and Retreats, Karen worked as a therapist and group leader at Life Healing Center of Santa Fe, New Mexico. In this residential setting, Karen helped clients heal from childhood trauma and abuse, as well as from various addictions. She worked extensively with dissociative disorders, depression and anxiety, as well as the many addictions that people often use to try to cope with their pain, particularly eating disorders, chemical addiction, and sex and love addiction.  

Karen is a student of A Course in Miracles and is both a Centering Prayer and Zen practitioner.  After spending time at the monastery of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in France, she taught mindfulness and meditation classes at Miraval, a spa and resort north of Tucson, and led week-long programs on mindful eating at Hilton Head Health Institute.  Combining her contemplative meditation practice with her understanding of God through the Course in Miracles, Karen and her husband developed Forgiveness Circles, a group process that allows participants to release their burdens and ask God/Spirit for help in healing them.   

Karen incorporates Psychodrama, Gestalt and energy tools such as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) into her dynamic, Spirit-inspired work.  She loves being outdoors and has participated in Vision Questing, sweat lodges and other Native American and earth-based practices.  She developed a unique Inner Bonding method, called Inner Bonding in Action, which combines Inner Bonding with Psychodrama and Action Methods.  

Karen has a graduate degree in counseling psychology from Southwestern College in Santa Fe, NM.  She has a background in business and worked for a number of years in marketing, sales and management.  Karen has been an approved affiliate and certified facilitator of Inner Bonding^® since 2004.

Remembering Our Dogs, Seesha and Neena

Seesha (the black one) passed away during the August 2011 Healing Hearts Women's Retreat in Colorado, surrounded by a group of beautiful participants. Her powerful spirit continues to protect us. 

Neena passed away in December of 2018, just a week after we hiked in the snowy National Forest and cut down our Christmas tree. She was a sweet and silly dog who lived life to the fullest.

What Others Say...

By working with Karen, I learned to authentically communicate with those inner aspects of myself that needed and wanted to be heard and loved.  Karen helped me do this because she has traveled this road herself.  Karen has been on her own daily journey for decades.  This, along with her years of study, training and working with hundreds of clients all over the world, enables her to be a most effective guide and teacher. 

Do you want to experience real transformation that changes who you are being in the world?  Then contact Karen.

Daniel Paul Brace, Avila Beach, CA

How to Contact Us

505-466-2999

corequest@live.com

Mark Lersch, M.A., M.I.M., LPC

Before dedicating himself full-time to working with individual clients, Mark was the clinical manager at an intensive outpatient program (IOP) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he helped to build the program from the ground up.  He worked for five years as both an individual and group therapist at Life Healing Center of Santa Fe, a residential treatment center where clients came to heal addictions and underlying trauma.  He has worked extensively with clients whose issues include chemical addiction, sex and love addiction, eating disorders, financial disorders, depression, anxiety, relationship issues and codependency.  Working with the underlying issues of addiction, Mark has helped clients to explore childhood sexual and physical abuse, neglect, loss, the effects of natural disaster, and other traumas.  However, he has found that much more important than what has happened in the past, is how we are relating to and aligning with ourselves right now, in this moment.  At the heart of the work he does with all clients is teaching them how to develop a loving relationship with themselves and learning to align with the divine within.

Mark’s psycho-spiritual approach to healing is influenced by his own interest in spirituality and healing.  He practiced mindfulness at the monastery of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, and spent many years deeply involved in Zen Buddhism.  His current interest is in blending the well-established practices of meditation with the principles of A Course in Miracles, and in facilitating Forgiveness Circles, a group process which he developed with his wife, Karen. 

Mark holds a black belt in Aikido, a non-violent martial art, which teaches how to find one’s own “center”, to extend “ki” (life force), and to blend one’s energy with opposing forces and redirect them in non-harmful ways.    Mark has found the principles of Aikido helpful not only in psychotherapy, but also in dealing with the stressors of daily life.

Mark has an undergraduate degree in psychology, a graduate degree in international management (M.I.M.), and a graduate degree in counseling psychology.  Mark has training in a variety of therapy modalities and his counseling approach is eclectic and unique to each client.  He is an approved affiliate and certified facilitator of Inner Bonding^®.

Mark also now has his own website, which more accurately depicts his personality and style.  Check it out at: http://www.marklersch.com/  

What Others Say...

Mark and I met during an acute phase of my trauma recovery and I was not a nice person (to be generous!).  I now understand, with his help, that I was operating completely out of my wounded self, but it was all I knew how to be for most of my life.  Several years later I reconnected with him when I was at rock-bottom.  Once again, my lifetime struggle with choosing life or suicide, God and Light or darkness, were major issues that I woke up to daily.  Mark literally companioned me from the darkness into the Light. I will never forget that particular session when I made my commitment to Life and the image of me walking across a dark abyss into a light-filled space. Thoughts of suicide have dissolved for the first time in my life.   He is now coaching me and my partner as we navigate the maze of triggers and as we learn to love ourselves and each other no matter if our wounded self or loving, beautiful core essence shows up for the day.   It's the first time my partner is doing inner work and he looks forward to our sessions.  What I treasure most is Mark's gentleness when I'm in my wounded self or when I tell him of a difficult wounded self interaction I had in-between sessions and his respecting my religious orientation. For years I was in therapy with professionals that could not relate to this important aspect of my life.  Pure balm for my soul.   I recommend working with Mark whole-heartedly and without any reservations. 

M. G., female, age 49

Thank you...

to the teachers, teachings and books that have inspired, influenced and assisted us on our path

A Course in Miracles, Jack Kornfield, Lama Surya Das, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thay Giac Thanh, Suzuki Roshi, Pema Chödrön, Sharon Salzberg, Stephen and Ondrea Levine, Zen, Vipassana and Theravadan Buddhism, Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Thanissaro, Ralph Steele, Barabar Brodsky and Aaron, Paramahansa Yogananda, Father Thomas Keating and Centering Prayer, Cheri Huber, Charolette Joko Beck, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Adyashanti, Kate Cook, Katherine Ninos, Sequoyah Trueblood, Larry Dettweiler, Susan Riley, Alan Brody, Susannah Tyrrell, Carol Parker and Vision Fast, Jim Lengerich, Tod and Niccole, Morihei Ueshiba and Aikido, David Daishin Brighton, Sydney Musai Walter, Pat Rodegast and Emmanuel, Sonia Choquette, Gary Craig and the powerful Emotional Freedom Techniques process he shared with others nearly free of charge, Gerald Jampolsky, Margaret Paul, Erika Chopich, Inner Bonding and Healing Your Aloneness, Karlfried Graf Dürkheim, Eckhart Tolle, Stephen Mitchell and the Tao de Ching, Byron Katie, Ester and Jerry Hicks and Abraham, Dr. Hu Len and Ho'oponopono, Paul Ferrini, David Hoffmeister, Kenneth Wapnick, Jayem and the Way of Mastery, Nouk Sanchez, Corrine Walson, Cate Grieves, Angee and Denali, Barbara Brennan, Ralph Blum and The Book of Runes, Jamie Sams and the Sacred Path Cards, J.R.R. Tolkein, Ross Hostetter and The Keepers of the Field, Neal Donald Walsch, the books of Walter Russell, Dorothy Bryant and The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You, Sogyal Rinpoche and the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Carlos Castaneda, Sandra Ingerman, Marlo Morgan and Mutant Message Down Under, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, The Bhagavad-Gita, The Journey by Brandon Bays, Colin Tipping and Radical Forgiveness, Corrine McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, Bruno Groening, The Bruno Groening Circle of Friends, The Singing Bird Sangha in Tucson, Arizona, Marshall Rosenberg and Nonviolent Communication, Ted Andrews and Animal Speak, David Hawkins and Power Vs. Force, Jane Roberts and Oversoul Seven, Caroline Myss and Sacred Contracts, Flo Aeveia Magdalena, Carla Ruckert and The Law of One, Thomas Crum and Three Deep Breaths, Baird T. Spalding and the Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East, Ken Carey and The Starseed Transmissions, Mary Oliver, Peter Mt. Shasta, Paul De Haas and Relax You Are Going To Die, Dan Millman and The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Marianne Williamson and A Return to Love, Robert Fulghum and All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Leo Busgalia, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, Herman Hesse, Franz Kafka, Sandra Cisneros, Isabel Allende, Toni Morrison, Leo Tolstoy, Chaim Potok and The Chosen, Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Women Who Run With the Wolves, William Shakespeare, St. Germain, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Victor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning, Chinua Achebe and Things Fall Apart, Leslie Marmon Silko and Ceremony, E.B. White, William Faulkner, Jack Coury, Mrs. Maly, Ms. Danforth, Mrs. Owens, Mr. Lingerman, Sr. Rose, the woman in Viveiro, Spain, Robert Peng, Lee Holden and QiGong, Dr. Maky Erdely, Chinese Medicine, homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga, the "heilstrom", Father God, Divine Mother, Creator, Great Mystery, Jesus, Mother Mary, Quan Yin, Tara, Kali, Shakyamuni Buddha, Maitreya Buddha, Manjushri Buddha, All Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout time and space, Mother Earth, Father Sky, Brother Sun and Sister Moon, all the angels and archangels, all of our elders, ancestors, guides and guardians of all traditions, our family and friends and all those whose names we left unsaid.