About Karl Stenske Counselor Irvine

Therapy with Karl Stenske, LMFT Counselor Irvine, CA

You’ve Held It Together for So Long.

But Something’s Still Not Right.

You’ve been quietly struggling for a while now.

You’ve learned how to function, even when it hurts. You’ve kept the plates spinning—at work, in your relationships, in your day-to-day life. On the outside, no one would guess how disconnected or exhausted you feel inside.

But underneath, there’s a quiet ache you can’t shake. You feel disconnected—from others, from yourself. You keep running into the same relationships and patterns. You're tired of feeling like you're too much, not enough, or just outside of your own life.

You Are Ready For Help

You know you want support. Maybe you’ve even looked for it before.

But how do you actually find a therapist you can trust—someone who doesn’t just nod and take notes, but really gets what you’re carrying? Someone who knows how to help without making you feel like you need to explain or defend your pain?

You’re ready for help—but finding the right therapist can feel like a whole challenge of its own.
How do you find someone who doesn’t just nod an take notes, but actually gets it? Someone who knows how to help without making you feel like you need to explain or defend your pain?

What if you open up, and they don’t know what to do with what you share?

And even if you do find someone… will they know what to do with your kind of story?

That kind of uncertainty can be paralyzing. Especially if you’ve tried before and it didn’t go well. Or if you’ve spent most of your life believing you’re supposed to figure it out on your own.

Those fears are real. Therapy is vulnerable work.

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. You don’t have to keep carrying this by yourself. Therapy can help—when it’s with someone who really sees you, who understands how all the pieces fit together, how trauma and attachment work from the inside out, and who knows how to work gently but deeply.

That’s the kind of work I do.

Why I Do This Work

I became a therapist not because I had everything figured out—but because I’ve lived the very questions my clients bring into the room.

For much of my life, I didn’t think adoption had really impacted me. I had a good childhood. I wasn’t actively searching for more. But during my first master’s program a simple paper on adoption cracked something open. Suddenly, I could see how feelings of unworthiness, emotional disconnection, and repeated relationship struggles were all rooted in early experiences of separation and identity loss.

That moment reshaped everything—my personal journey and my professional path.

As someone who’s navigated my own healing through identity, loss, and disconnection, I know how it feels to be in relationship but still feel alone. To question your worth, your belonging, or your ability to ever feel truly safe with others.

“I see you. And we can work with this.”

And I also know how powerful it is to finally sit with someone who says, “I see you. And we can work with this.”

Professionally, I hold two Master’s degrees—one in Marriage and Family Therapy and one in Adoption Studies—I have directed a foster and adoption agency, spoken nationally, been published internationally, trained other professionals, and worked on legislative reform to restore adoptee rights. But the most important work I have done over the last 15 plus year is supporting individuals, couples, and families. I specialize in adoption, trauma, attachment, and relational healing. With my clinical expertise and deep lived experience as a foundation I am able to support individuals and couples at the root—not just the surface.

I won’t hand you clichés or pretend this is a one-size-fits-all process.
But I will show up with presence, skill, and a deep commitment to your healing.

What Working Together Can Feel Like

Therapy with me is not about fixing you. You’re not broken.

It’s about making sense of what’s felt overwhelming, learning to trust your inner experience, and creating more space to be fully yourself—in your life and in your relationships.

We’ll move at a pace that feels safe. We’ll explore the patterns that have shaped you, not to shame you, but to understand what’s underneath—and help you shift what no longer serves you.

We’ll slow things down so we can make sense of what’s underneath the stuckness. We’ll explore how early experiences may still echo in your current life—not to stay stuck in the past, but to free you up in the present.

This kind of work can help you:

• Build relationships that feel emotionally safe, not performative or draining

• Reconnect as a couple and move beyond the same fights, toward deeper understanding and closeness

• Unravel the quiet pain of your childhood

• Understand and untangle the wounds that keep you guarded or reactive

• Finally feel like you belong—to yourself, and with others

• Explore adoption with clarity—whether you're placing, adopting, or processing your own experience

You don’t need to know exactly where to begin. You just need to show up. We’ll take it from there—together.

My Approach & Specialties

I work with individuals, couples, adoptive families, and birth families navigating a range of emotional and relational challenges, including:

• Adoption & Identity
  For adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth families dealing with any emotional or relational aspect of adoption.

• Attachment & Relational Trauma
  Addressing how early emotional wounds show up in adult relationships—and how to change those patterns.

• Couples & Relationship Therapy
  Using Emotionally Focused Therapy to help move from disconnection to emotional safety and repair.

• Brainspotting & Somatic Work
  Accessing the body’s deeper wisdom when words aren’t enough—especially for trauma healing.

Grounded in Emotionally Focused Therapy, trauma-informed care, attachment theory, and deep respect for your lived experience. I don’t pathologize. I help you make sense of your story—so you can live it more fully. Rooted in the belief that healing happens in relationship.

Let’s Begin

You don’t have to keep wondering if things can ever feel different. They can.

Click below to schedule a free 15-minute consultation by calling me at 949-922-0734. It’s a chance for us to talk—no pressure, no obligation—and see if I might be the right person to walk with you in this next part of your story.

You deserve support that fits, care that feels safe, and healing that lasts. Let’s begin.