Lauren Rubenstein, PsyD, Psychologist

06/15/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1JKhdvkEKe/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Interesting viewpoint: “We don’t have an epidemic of mental
Illness. We have an epidemic of psychiatry.”
Your thoughts?

05/10/2026

Male scarlet tanager?

05/04/2026

Yesterday was International Bereaved Mother's Day. Joanne Cacciatore, a bereaved mother, wrote:

I am a mother. I am a bereaved mother.
My child died, and this is my reluctant path.
It is not a path of my choice, but it is a path I must walk mindfully and with intention.
It is a journey through the darkest night of my soul and it will take time to wind through the places that scare me.

Every cell in my body aches and longs to be with my beloved child. On days when grief is loud, I may be impatient, distracted, frustrated, and unfocused.

I may get angry more easily, or I may seem hopeless. I will shed many, many, many tears.

I won’t smile as often as my old self. Smiling hurts now. Most everything hurts some days, even breathing.

But please, just sit beside me.
Say nothing.
Do not offer a cure.
Or a pill, or a word, or a potion.

Witness my suffering.
Don’t turn away from me.
Please be gentle with me.

And I will try to be gentle with me too.
I will not ever "get over" my child's death so please don’t urge me down that path.

Even on days when grief is quiescent, when it isn't standing loudly in the foreground, even on days when I am even able to smile again, the pain is just beneath the surface.

There are days when I still feel paralyzed. My chest feels the sinking weight of my child's absence and, sometimes, I feel as if I will explode from the grief.

Losing my child affects me in so many ways: as a woman, a mother, a human being. It affects every aspect of me: spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. There are days when I barely recognize myself in the mirror anymore.

Grief is as personal to me as my fingerprint. Don't tell me how I should or shouldn’t be grieving or that I should or shouldn’t “feel better by now.” Don't tell me what's right or wrong. I'm doing it my way, in my time. If I am to survive this, I must do what is best for me.

My understanding of life will change and a different meaning of life will slowly evolve.

What I knew to be true or absolute or real or fair about the world has been challenged so I'm finding my way, moment-to-moment in this new place.

Things that once seemed important to me are barely thoughts any longer. I notice life's suffering more- hungry children, the homeless and the destitute, a mother’s harsh voice toward her young child- or an elderly person struggling with the door.

There are so many things about the world which I now struggle to understand: Why do children die? There are some questions, I've learned, which are simply unanswerable.

So please don’t tell me that “ God has a plan ” for me. This, my friend, is between me and my God. Those platitudes slip far too easily from the mouths of those who tuck their own child into a safe, warm bed at night: Can you begin to imagine your own child, flesh of your flesh, lying lifeless in a casket, when “goodbye” means you’ll never see them on this Earth again?

Grieving mothers- and fathers- and grandparents- and siblings won’t wake up one day with everything ’okay’ and life back to normal. I have a new normal now.

As time passes, I may gain gifts, and treasures, and insights but anything gained was too high a cost when compared to what was lost.

Perhaps, one day, when I am very, very old, I will say that time has truly helped to heal my broken heart. But always remember that not a second of any minute of any hour of any day passes when I am not aware of the presence of my child's absence, no matter how many years lurk over my shoulder, don’t forget that I have another one, another child, whose absence, like the sky, is spread over everything as C.S. Lewis said ...
“My child may have died; but my love - and my motherhood - never will.”

~ Artwork by Sandra De La Torre

04/30/2026

my brain and heart divorced
a decade ago

over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become

eventually,
they couldn't be
in the same room
with each other

now my head and heart
share custody of me

I stay with my brain
during the week

and my heart
gets me on weekends

they never speak to one another

- instead, they give me
the same note to pass
to each other every week

and their notes they
send to one another always
says the same thing:

"This is all your fault"

on Sundays
my heart complains
about how my
head has let me down
in the past

and on Wednesday
my head lists all
of the times my
heart has screwed
things up for me
in the future

they blame each
other for the
state of my life

there's been a lot
of yelling - and crying

so,

lately, I've been
spending a lot of
time with my gut

who serves as my
unofficial therapist

most nights, I sneak out of the
window in my ribcage

and slide down my spine
and collapse on my
gut's plush leather chair
that's always open for me

~ and I just sit sit sit sit
until the sun comes up

last evening,
my gut asked me
if I was having a hard
time being caught
between my heart
and my head

I nodded

I said I didn't know
if I could live with
either of them anymore

"my heart is always sad about
something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried
about something that may happen tomorrow,"
I lamented

my gut squeezed my hand

"I just can't live with
my mistakes of the past
or my anxiety about the future,"
I sighed

my gut smiled and said:

"in that case,
you should
go stay with your
lungs for a while,"

I was confused
- the look on my face gave it away

"if you are exhausted about
your heart's obsession with
the fixed past and your mind's focus
on the uncertain future

your lungs are the perfect place for you

there is no yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either

there is only now
there is only inhale
there is only exhale
there is only this moment

there is only breath

and in that breath
you can rest while your
heart and head work
their relationship out."

this morning,
while my brain
was busy reading
tea leaves

and while my
heart was staring
at old photographs

I packed a little
bag and walked
to the door of
my lungs

before I could even knock
she opened the door
with a smile and as
a gust of air embraced me
she said

"what took you so long?"

~ john roedel

03/22/2026

(Author: )

It’s a very thin line… and if we’re not careful, we spend our lives mistaking one for the other.

We tell ourselves we are choosing connection, choosing love, choosing belonging. But quietly, almost invisibly, we begin to edit ourselves. We soften certain truths, silence certain instincts, reshape parts of who we are so we can remain held, seen, accepted. Not because we are weak, but because we are human. Because somewhere deep within us, attachment feels like survival.

Gabor Maté points to something uncomfortable here: when authenticity and attachment collide, attachment almost always wins.

And it makes sense. Long before we had language for “being ourselves,” we had a nervous system wired for connection. As children, being accepted wasn’t just a desire, it was safety. So we learned, often without realizing it, that who we are can be negotiated… but connection cannot be lost.

That pattern doesn’t simply disappear with age. It follows us into friendships, relationships, workplaces, into every space where belonging feels like something we could lose. And so we keep choosing attachment, sometimes at the quiet expense of ourselves.

The danger is not in choosing connection. It’s in losing awareness of the cost.

Because over time, the distance between who you are and who you present can become so subtle you barely notice it. Until one day, you feel disconnected not from others, but from yourself. And you can’t quite explain why.

Authenticity, then, is not just about expression. It’s about courage. The courage to risk being seen as you are, even when it threatens the very connections you depend on. The courage to believe that real belonging does not require self-abandonment.

And maybe the work is not to reject attachment, but to gently renegotiate it. To build connections where your truth is not a liability. To stay, not by shrinking, but by standing fully in who you are.

Because the deepest kind of connection isn’t the one you secure by becoming what others need.
It’s the one that remains… when you stop editing yourself.

02/14/2026

“Mental health professionals should prescribe exercise with the same confidence as traditional treatments.”

A large, pooled analysis finds supervised group exercise works best for depression, while shorter, lower-intensity activity has strong benefits for anxiety.

01/02/2026

Think of the year
as a house:
door flung wide
in welcome,
threshold swept
and waiting,
a graced spaciousness
opening and offering itself
to you.

Let it be blessed
in every room.
Let it be hallowed
in every corner.
Let every nook
be a refuge
and every object
set to holy use.

Let it be here
that safety will rest.
Let it be here
that health will make its home.
Let it be here
that peace will show its face.
Let it be here
that love will find its way.

Here
let the weary come
let the aching come
let the lost come
let the sorrowing come.

Here
let them find their rest
and let them find their soothing
and let them find their place
and let them find their delight.

And may it be
in this house of a year
that the seasons will spin in beauty,
and may it be
in these turning days
that time will spiral with joy.
And may it be
that its rooms will fill
with ordinary grace
and light spill from every window
to welcome the stranger home.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings
janrichardson.com/books

Featuring the distinctive work of artist and author Jan Richardson, we offer images for worship, education, and contemplation. Individual downloads and annual subscriptions are available. Visit Jan’s primary website at janrichardson.com.

12/20/2025

By Megan Rundel:

At the winter solstice, we find ourselves in the long night—the place where nothing is being asked to improve. The Earth is not striving toward light. It is resting inside the dark, and in that resting, something ancient and trustworthy is already turning.

This is familiar territory for KAP therapists. Much of what we accompany lives below the surface of language and intention. The nervous system moves the way roots move in winter—slowly, invisibly, guided by an intelligence that does not announce itself. Our work is not to interpret or direct this movement, but to stay close, curious, and kind as it unfolds.

In sessions, we often sit with moments that feel like stillness, confusion, or descent. Joan Sutherland reminds us that these moments are not interruptions to the path; they are the path. Winter teaches us that not-knowing is not a failure of practice. It is a form of intimacy with life as it is.

The solstice invites a particular kind of trust: trust in what cannot yet be named, trust in the body’s timing, trust in the way healing grows sideways before it grows upward. When we allow the dark to be fully here—without reassurance, without hurry—we offer a field in which something true can arrive on its own.

This season also asks something tender of us as practitioners. Where are we being asked to rest inside our own unlit places? Where might we soften our grip on competence, certainty, or being helpful? The same field we offer others is the field we need, too.

And quietly, without ceremony, the light returns—not as a solution, but as a continuation. A little more space. A little more warmth. Not because we made it happen, but because we stayed.

On this solstice, may we remember that the dark is not a problem to solve, but a companion. May we keep company with it—together—until it turns.

12/05/2025

https://www.dailygood.org/view.php?op=nletter&qid=10500

12/04/2025

“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

“So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet