Karen Taylor

For over 36 years, Karen has been at the forefront of compassionate mental health care, offering holistic and alternative approaches to recovery from “psychosis.” She understands that many people given this label are, in reality, survivors of trauma. Through her work with Working to Recovery, she has helped many explore the connections between past experiences and present struggles, supporting them in finding meaning, healing, and a path toward greater emotional well-being.

Karen is a highly regarded trainer and consultant, shaping mental health services around the world. She is deeply committed to co-production, bringing together people with lived experience, families, and professionals to foster real dialogue and transformation. She has a particular gift for creating learning environments that shift perspectives and challenge conventional ways of thinking about mental health, trauma, and spirituality. One of her most influential training programs, the Recovery Champions course, was first developed in collaboration with the Scottish Association for Mental Health and the Scottish Recovery Network and has since been delivered internationally, helping to reframe what true recovery looks like.

Karen’s experience is not only in education and training but also in service design and development. She has worked extensively with organisations to create alternative models of care, using approaches such as PATH (Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope), Open-Space Events, and participatory community consultations. She has a strong interest in the redesign of mental health services, particularly those that focus on recovery from “psychosis,” and has played a key role in shaping new and innovative ways of working. Whether through consultancy, service development, or public speaking, her work consistently challenges the status quo and advocates for more humane, person-centred approaches to mental health.

Her commitment to practice-based learning led to the creation of three recovery house models, which allowed her to put theory into action. These houses demonstrated what is possible when people experiencing “psychosis” are given the space and support to heal outside of traditional hospital settings. Working to Recovery’s online Living Well College continues this work, offering courses that embrace a biopsychosocial approach and recognise the deep connections between spirituality, trauma, and emotional well-being. Now, Karen supports others in setting up their own recovery houses and alternative services, ensuring that her legacy continues to inspire and enable change.

While Karen and Working to Recovery offer guidance and support to those seeking alternatives to mainstream mental health care, they are unable to provide crisis intervention for people in acute distress outside of online services. However, for those looking for a different path to healing, her work remains a powerful resource for hope and transformation.

Karen worked as an RMN (Mental Health Nurse) in the NHS in England for 16 years, before joining forces with her husband, visionary voice hearer, playwright, activist and international consultant, Ron Coleman.

Since Ron’s diagnosis of vascular dementia five years ago, the couple has been trailblazing creative and recovery-focused approaches to living well with dementia and cognitive impairment. Together, they run Deepness Ltd, a peer-support initiative based on the Intentional Peer Support model. They also lead pioneering projects, including pilgrimages, radio stations, and plays, showcasing new ways of supporting people with dementia. They are also organising  the 3rd Annual Scottish Dementia Arts Festival – making that people with dementia remain at the heart of everything they do.

In all her work, Karen has embraced the hearing voices approaches that her husband, Ron Coleman, helped to establish, and has been on a spiritual journey of her own. This has led to the core belief that there is no neat dividing line between spirituality and psychosis. Many people labelled as “psychotic” are in fact survivors of trauma, and that the voices and visions experienced are derived from the trauma that they lived through and spiritual emergence. She is a trained spiritual companion and has developed a practice based on a Celtic belief system that all life is connected, in exploring our own connections to land and “belonging” emotional healing can take place. She offers a number of residential courses, including Midwife of the Soul, Return to innocence and Wisdom of the Crone based on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides where she and Ron live.