Karen Schultz overcame her abusive childhood to become a married mother of two, a licensed clinical social worker and an author. (photo by Jim Slonoff)
Why did you write your latest book?
Karen Schultz is a licensed clinical social worker, spiritual teacher, medium and healer with almost four decades of experience specializing in psychotherapy and spiritual development. She's also the author of five books, the most recent of which tells the story of a little girl and her relationship with a beautiful priestess who guides her through life.
Little Karen, the main character in "Little Karen and the Egyptian Priestess: How My Higher Self Healed My Childhood" is Schultz herself. Like the Karen in her book, Schultz found ways to escape the pain and abuse of her childhood. Through the story of Little Karen, she wants to assist others in doing the same.
"I hope to help as many people as possible," she said.
The Priestess, Schultz explained, is Little Karen's higher self.
"She had to use her higher self to work with her - just like an inner friend or colleague," she said.
As a child growing up on Long Island, Schultz said she often escaped in her mind to a place she now recognizes as Egypt.
"Egypt became home for my soul and my life. For years I never thought about it, but when I started seeing programs on Egypt and how ancient life was, I realized this was real," she said.
Like her fifth book, Schultz's first four self-published books also focus on childhood abuse and recovery. This story, however, takes a metaphysical rather than instructional approach.
Schultz said her own childhood encounters with her own "priestess" provided reassurance that there was life and hope beyond her abuse.
"It gave me a sense that there was another world," she said.
Now, she recognizes this as dissociation. But through that dissociation, Schultz said she saw the purpose of her struggle and a goal for her life.
"I knew this was my purpose from the very beginning," she said of writing her latest book.
She hopes it helps others, and she knows it has helped herself.
"Since writing the book I've had so much joy, it's overwhelming," Schultz said.
With degrees from the State University of New York at Binghamton and the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, Schultz's practice is located on Ogden Avenue in Hinsdale. There, she uses her education, decades of experience and her own life events to helps adults to recover from their childhood traumas.
"It's never too late to have a happy childhood," she said.
It's also never too late to tap into the spiritual powers that Schultz believes are within everyone. Along with individual counseling sessions, Schultz offers a monthly spiritual group where attendees can discuss spirit's role in their lives and explore psychic abilities and the power of intuition.
Schultz said she's already working on a sequel to her story about Little Karen. In preparation for "Adventures of Little Karen and the Egyptian Priestess," Schultz said she hopes to finally visit the place she escaped to so many times as a child.
"It's always been a hope of mine to visit Egypt," she said. And this time, it won't be only in her mind.
- by Sandy Illian Bosch
