Welcome to Charlotte Kasl’s official website . . .
If you’re looking for encouragement and empowerment, you’ve come to the right place.
The message that runs through all of Charlottes books and workshops is that of empowerment—to find your authentic voice, trust your internal wisdom, open yourself to new learning and understand ourselves and others within a cultural context. She brings her material alive through humor, stories, personal accounts and a broad knowledge of many spiritual traditions.
Her first book, Women, Sex and Addiction: A Search for Love and Power, published in 1989, has become a classic in the addiction field. It has been a powerful source of hope and healing for thousands of people. Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the Twelve Steps, that followed, pioneered a 16-step empowerment approach for overcoming addiction and trauma. Her approach has many parallels to positive psychology, attachment theory, developing resilience, and respecting individual and cultural differences. It also reflects recent knowledge of brain science. The empowerment model has been widely used in the United States and Canada, and many people are finding it helpful for overcoming depression. She states that “while fear may jump-start people into recovery, love and self respect are what helps them heal.”
Finding Joy, 101 Ways to Free Your Spirit and Dance with Life is a wealth of wisdom and delight that has been used as a daily reading book for people in recovery/discovery, and for people suffering from depression. It's also just an 'upper' for everybody.
Her more recent books - If the Buddha Dated/Married/ Got Stuck have been extremely popular and will soon be joined by, If the Buddha Had Kids, Raising Children to Make Peace in the World. (December 2009). There are 22 foreign editions of Charlotte’s books.
Charlotte engages people in her books and workshops by intertwining psychology, feminism, sociology, Zen, Buddhism the philosophy of The Society of Friends (Quakers) and other spiritual traditions. Her signature style includes stories of people’s experience, humor, inspiration, and practical ideas to use on an everyday basis. She is able to make complex ideas clear and easy to grasp. She presents material in a warm, compassionate, often humorous manner, involving the participants and making the materials at once personally accessible and applicable to everyday situations. Charlotte's Workshops
"I wear the hat of psychotherapist, author, and teacher, but at my core, I am a peace and social justice activist. I believe the starting place for healing the planet is in our hearts and in the ways we practice respect, empathy, understanding and equality in all human relationships, including our relationship to ourselves. I believe personal growth and healing involve a holistic process tat includes insight, bonding, awareness, discipline, learning new skills, and accepting the “what is” of the moment. Ultimately our personal growth and empowerment are reflected by playing our part to restore peace and balance on the planet and coming to the deep awareness that we are one earth, one people.
Additional note: I love to hike in the mountains, play tennis, canoe, go to concerts, play the piano, and hang out with friends - especially at a cabin by a lake." ~ Dr. Charlotte Kasl
"I wear the hat of psychotherapist, author, and teacher, but at my core, I am a peace and social justice activist. I believe the starting place for healing the planet is in our hearts and in the ways we practice respect, empathy, understanding and equality in all human relationships, including our relationship to ourselves." ~ Charlotte Kasl
