History of Training and Experience
1965-1969:
Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Sociology. Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Graduated Magna Cum Laude, Extensive training in Humanistic, Cognitive and Behavioral Psychology.
1970-1975:
Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Extensive Training in Cognitive and Behavioral approaches in psychotherapy. Extensive Training in Sex Therapy and Human Sexuality Research and Education
1970-1975:
Dr. Karr was an important contributing member to the creation and early development of the Seattle Counseling Service for Sexual Minorities, the first Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender counseling service in the United States. Among the contributions of Dr. Karr were the naming of the organization and the concept that the name embodies. The counseling service was community based and involved both trained and licensed therapists as well as peer counselors. Dr. Karr received extensive training under the supervision of licensed psychologists and psychiatrists at Seattle Counseling Services for Sexual Minorities. He was supervised in individual, couple and group therapy with gay, lesbian, and transgender clients. He also organized numerous workshops, lectures and presentations concerning gay, lesbian and transgender issues, which were presented to professionals in psychology, psychiatry, social work and medicine in Seattle. These workshops were intended to sensitize and educate said professionals in dealing with their gay, lesbian and transgender patients and their issues.
1970-1975:
Dr. Karr was teaching assistant and research assistant for Dr. Nathaniel Wagner, who was an internationally known and published psychology professor, sex educator, and sex therapist at the University of Washington. He assisted Dr. Wagner in teaching each quarter, three psychology sections in human sexuality (400 students in each section). Dr. Karr was the president of the University of Washington's gay student association and did extensive lecturing to various classes on campus as the U of W's mascot "queer."
1970-1975:
Dr. Karr was involved with the University of Washington's Gender Identity Clinics conducting preliminary assessments of applicants for sex reassignment treatment and surgery. Dr. Karr was also involved in the clinic with research concerning gender identity and the differences between heterosexual transvestites, gay drag queens, and transsexuals. This clinic was avant-garde for the early 1970's regarding gender identity and sexual issues.
Dr. Karr began his activities as a gay activist at the beginning of the gay movement in 1969 following New York's Christopher Street riots. He joined the Gay Liberation Front in Portland, Oregon in 1969. In 1970, when he entered graduate school at the University of Washington, he came out as a gay man. He received a great deal of harassment and discrimination because of this. He was placed on academic probation and consideration was given as to whether or not a gay man could become a psychologist. At that time, being gay was still considered to be a mental illness according to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistics Manual. Dr. Karr, with the support of his advisor, Dr. Wagner, was able to shift and change the attitude of the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington towards homosexuality during this time. It is amazing how much the world has changed since this time, when Dr. Karr was one of the few gay activists who was public about his sexual orientation.
Since then, he has continued his activist activities, primarily in the form of educating the heterosexual community, especially professionals, concerning the realities and needs of gay, lesbian, and transgender people.
1975:
One-year full time internship at the VA Hospital in Seattle, Washington. Extensive training in treatment of drug addiction, alcoholism, and Post Traumatic Stress Syndromes with veterans, especially those returning from the Viet Nam war.
1975: August 1975:
Dr. Karr completed and was awarded his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington. He moved to San Francisco at that time and began a full year postdoctoral internship at the University of California at San Francisco Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Langley-Porter Institute, Department of Human Sexuality. He received extensive training in male sexuality and sex therapy with men. He was brought on board and became involved in the Human Sexuality programs educational classes for health care professionals providing gay, lesbian, and transgender education.
1976-1981:
Dr. Karr became an Associate Staff with the University of California at San Francisco Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Langley-Porter Institute, Department of Human Sexuality. He supervised interns in the Human Sexuality program sex clinic and participated as an educator in the Human Sexuality program, classes and workshops concerning human sexuality for health professionals. He was the assistant to the director of the men's program, Dr. Bernie, Zilbergeld, who was an internationally famous researcher and published author dealing with male sexuality. Dr Bernie Zilbergeld's book, The New Male Sexuality: The Truth about Men, Sex, and Pleasure, ISBN: 0553380427, is still considered the most important book dealing with male sexuality.
1976-1984:
Volunteer therapist educator and clinical supervisor with Operation Concern and Pacific Medical Center. Operation Concern is now known by the name of New Leaf. It was and continues to be the primary gay, lesbian, transgender counseling clinic in San Francisco.
There, Dr. Karr provided individual, couple and group therapy as a volunteer therapist. Later, after being licensed, he was a clinical supervisor of interns and developed various workshops and educational programs for San Francisco professionals regarding gay, lesbian and transgender issues.
He coordinated for Operation Concern, along with the Shanti Project and the AIDS Foundation, some of the earliest workshops concerning what is now called AIDS. He helped develop with Jim Geary of the Shanti Project, the early prototype for the Shanti trainings. The Shanti Project was the first organization in the United States to develop programs of volunteer support for persons with AIDS as well as support groups for persons with AIDS and educational programs to teach health and helping professionals concerning the needs of persons with AIDS. The Shanti Project became the model internationally for such AIDS service organizations.
1976-1980:
Volunteer therapist and educator at Pacific Center for Human Growth in Berkeley, California. Dr. Karr was a volunteer therapist doing individual, couple and group therapy with gay, lesbian and transgender clients at Pacific Center for Human Growth, the primary gay, lesbian, and transgender counseling service for Alameda County. Dr. Karr facilitated and taught workshops for professionals in the East Bay regarding gay, lesbian and transgender issues under the auspices of the Pacific Center.
1977- 1998:
In Classical Jungian and Freudian analytic practice, an analytic candidate undergoes analysis as the primary learning method in becoming an analyst. Dr. Karr went through an intensive long-term analysis with a well-known Jungian Analyst of the Jungian Institute in San Francisco in which he learned methods of being a Jungian Therapist. Dr. Karr uses such intensive Jungian depth approaches with some of his long term clients for whom that approach is appropriate. Jungian approaches include dream work, shadow work, archetypal approaches, psychodrama and psycho-play, etc. The Jungian philosophy is focused on facilitating client's consciousness and awareness of their wholeness. This may include clients becoming aware of their shadow and dark aspects as well. Also, clients learn through their own self-awareness and enhanced awareness of others that every man has a feminine side and that every woman has a masculine side. Jungian approaches facilitate non-judgmental accepting self-love vs. some other approaches that emphasize changing or fixing oneself according to the expectations of others.
1982-Present:
Dr. Karr was licensed as a Psychologist in March of 1982. He has focused his primary energy on a private practice in San Francisco and the East Bay since 1982.
1980-Present; Death, Dying and Living with the AIDS Epidemic:
A primary teacher of Dr. Karr has been his twenty-four years experiencing and surviving the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. This experience totally changed him and taught him the meaning of life, love, death, and spirituality. He has experienced for the last twenty-four years the deaths of a multitude of colleagues, friends, clients, lovers, and enemies. Dr. Karr's best friend and colleague, Paul, was the sixty-ninth person diagnosed with AIDS in San Francisco. He was also the first person with AIDS that Dr. Karr knew. He died of AIDS related conditions including KS and pneumacystis in 1982. Paul was featured in the book, And The Band Played On. Dr. Karr, through his involvement and presence in the death of hundreds of friends and colleagues has become an expert at dealing with death and dying issues and healing people to look at their death and make their death a positive one. Dr. Karr has experienced death being a great teacher of life not just for the person dying but also for the people in that person's life. Dr. Karr is expert at helping people process the death of a loved one or deal with a loved one's dying process.
Death teaches the importance of people, relationships, love, being in the moment, and going for what you really want in your life. If one can become comfortable with death, then all of the other fears and doubts in life become of minor consequence. Dr. Karr's experience with so many people dying has brought him to the study and practice of Jungian and Transpersonal approaches in psychotherapy. He has, over the last 24 years, studied extensively Hindu, Buddhist, Native American, and Western Mysteries traditions and philosophies.