Meet the Catholic mom + therapist behind Interior Kingdom!
Hi there! I'm Johanna Seagren, and I help Catholic families calm the chaos that big feelings cause in their Domestic Churches.
I'm a faithful Catholic and Licensed Professional Counselor...but mostly, these days, I hail to 'mama'. I'm so glad you're here!
When my first daughter was born with rare, unexpected congenital diagnosis, I was thrust into a world of ongoing trauma.
Despite being a therapist, I struggled to honor my feelings, find emotional stability in the midst of constant chaos, and be the mother I wanted to be.
Because from one parent to another - this whole parenting thing is hard. Catholic parenting? Whole other level of hard. Catholic gentle parenting? Next to impossible...but nothing is impossible with God. 😉
But real talk, I think the reason this is so hard for me is because I was not raised like this.
It's like trying to teach a teen to drive - difficult if you're an experienced driver, destined to crash if you've never driven before yourself.
So I tried to self-learn emotional regulation by following a bunch of Instagram "parent experts" and bloggers, but none of them seemed to help.
They also left me feeling like a parrot because apparently I was just supposed to repeat her feelings back to her? (Spoiler: It just made her madder.)
One day, God planted the vision of the Interior Kingdom in my mind based on all my experience with play therapy in my practice. And while I know He definitely wanted this to be shared with others, it was first and foremost a gift God was giving to me and my own family.
I share this so that you all know: this program wasn't born from a "perfect counselor who is a perfect parent"...but from the heart of a mother that was broken and needed healing.
God has absolutely transformed my motherhood and our family through Interior Kingdom - and I pray it does the same for you.
From our Interior Kingdom to yours...welcome!
The quote that keeps me going...
"She flies into frightful tantrums; when things don’t go just right and according to her way of thinking, she rolls on the floor in desperation like one without any hope. There are times when it gets too much for her and she literally chokes."
Sound like your kiddos? Well, that was written by St. Zelie Martin about none other than the demure "Little Flower," St. Therese of Lisieux, as a child. And if she can raise a saint and become one in the process, we can too!
Professional Background
(aka, why you can trust me)
Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville
Master's degree in Counseling from Franciscan University of Steubenville.
15 years of counseling experience - spanning missionary work in Ecuador, community mental health and group practice.
Founder of Two Hearts Counseling, which provides faith-based counseling services via Telehealth to this day.
One of my first loves of counseling was working with children. As such, I became trained in using a variety of play therapy modalities - and even invested in a 300 square foot office space just for play therapy. I later pursued certification in TBRI (Trust Based Relational Intervention) - a powerful model of enhancing parent-child relationships.
In my daily life, this all now translates to zeal for integrating connected & collaborative parenting approaches with my own children and yours through Interior Kingdom!
Interior Kingdom is a program that includes evidence-based research on emotional regulation and some of the best therapeutic modalities, including the Circumplex Model of Affect, Polyvagal Theory, TBRI (Trust Based Relational Intervention), Family Systems Theory, Play Therapy and more!
Ready for a calmer Domestic Church?
The sign of a good Catholic parent isn't someone who has "good" kids (otherwise St. Monica would have been in trouble!) - it's someone who provides space for their children to express and learn their God-given emotions and teaches them how to return to peace.
And that's exactly what Interior Kingdom has done for our family - and I hope it will for yours too.
