As a clinical psychologist, international speaker and trainer, and leading clinical advisor, Dr. Karlyn Pleasants is wholeheartedly committed to shifting paradigms and rewriting cultural narratives about mental health, healing, and the infinite possibilities available when we believe there is always more to the story.
Dr. Karlyn Pleasants is considered one the nation’s authorities on working with complex mental illnesses at the individual, sibling, and whole-family levels, speaking on topics related to mental illness in families, the arc and structure of lasting change, and the importance of healing at greater systemic levels. For twenty-five years, she has helped create thriving therapeutic environments that have supported thousands of individuals and their families in successfully building a life of self-management, health, and independence beyond the bounds of psychiatric diagnoses.
With a clinical lens grounded in attachment theory, Dr. Pleasants prefers to walk in the world of the intergenerational transmission of stories—the tales, experiences, beliefs, and traditions passed along through systems. Leaning on narrative techniques to help others put voice to that which needs to be spoken and heard, she supports the revising of family roles and personal scripts to create a new life-storyline.
In 2021, she wrote the foreword for the collaborative project You Can’t Make This St*ry Up, centered on the power of synchronicity and healing through story. In 2022, she joined forces with fellow storytellers, messengers, and guides to launch Saved by Story, a one-of-a-kind publishing house that compassionately supports individual and collective healing through stories of transformation and hope. In March 2023, her debut novel, Feathers from the Fire, landed earthside.
