The Grace of Grief - Astoria

Facilitators

• More details about Katelyn Staecker, LCSW

  Katelyn Staecker, LCSW

  I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Practitioner of Psychodrama, Sociometry, and Group Psychotherapy, and a psychotherapist, teacher, workshop leader, and IFS assistant trainer. I have been in private practice on the North Oregon Coast for more than 30 years. Throughout my career, I have facilitated workshops and retreats focused on personal growth, spirituality, vital aging, somatic healing, and the deep inner work of transformation. For the past ten years, I have had the privilege of studying with grief mentor Francis Weller. This work has deeply shaped my understanding of grief as a powerful doorway into healing, connection, and renewal. I am now devoted to creating and gathering communities of people who wish to explore their grief and losses in a direct, compassionate, and meaningful way, and to discover the healing and transformation that can emerge through that relationship. I feel blessed and excited to be joined in this purpose and calling by my beloved friend and colleague, Noah Rubenstein.

• More details about Noah Rubinstein, LMHC

  Noah Rubinstein, LMHC

  I’m so grateful to be here, to be alive, to see through these eyes, and to feel through this heart, which continues to heal, stretch and love more with each passing year. What a gift it is to be able to sit with others, hold space, and witness people transforming their lives! I’ve worked in social services and mental health for most of my adult life, and I continue to feel deeply grateful for this work. It’s a privilege to hold space for people navigating their struggles and to witness what becomes possible when we bring openness and compassion to our inner lives. ​I hold an undergraduate degree in philosophy from California Lutheran University (1994) and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Humboldt (1999). I was formerly licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist in Alaska and have been a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Washington State since 2001. Over the years, I’ve worked in a wide range of settings, including emergency shelters, hospice, home-based therapy programs, residential treatment centers, mental health clinics, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and private practice. From 2002 to 2004, I trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy with its developer, Richard Schwartz, PhD, eventually assisting in IFS trainings, hosting IFS workshops, and providing clinical supervision to other IFS therapists. IFS remains a guiding influence in my work, particularly its respect for people’s innate wisdom and its non-pathologizing, empowering, and collaborative approach to healing. In 2006, I founded GoodTherapy.org, a social enterprise with a mission to protect consumers, demystify therapy, and promote ethical, collaborative, and non-pathologizing approaches to psychotherapy. What began as a small project grew into one of the world’s leading mental health resources and therapist directories, serving millions of readers each month and supporting tens of thousands of therapists worldwide. While running GoodTherapy.org I had the opportunity to meet with and interview hundreds of thought leaders within the global mental health community and to lead hundreds of continuing education events for mental health professionals. In 2018, following the diagnosis of my Mom’s terminal illness, I sold the company and stepped away from my role, ready to realign my life around family, creativity, and deeper presence. Much like letting go of a child, I grieved the loss, but I knew the time was right. Thankfully I had time to spend with my mom before she passed in 2019. My father would follow her 6 months later. Like many people drawn to the mental health field, my professional path grew out of my own healing journey. While my education, credentials, and decades of experience matter, what has truly equipped me to help people in therapy comes from the years of being a client myself, doing my own inner work, healing, and changing my relationship to suffering. That lived experience continues to shape how I show up with others, with humility, respect, and a deep trust in each person’s inner capacity for healing. I’m the father of two teenage boys, and being their dad has been one of the most meaningful and healing experiences of my life. Parenting has taught me more about love, patience, grief, and letting go than anything else. Music has also been a lifelong companion. I compose and perform original, uplifting indie rock/pop songs with my sweetie, Ivy, and our band, Elevator Operator. Music has been a powerful pathway for expression, connection, meaning, and healing. Like therapy, music seems to have a way of metabolizing anything life brings.​ At the heart of my work is the knowledge that people already carry within them what they need to heal. My role is not to fix or diagnose, but to help create the conditions where one’s own curiosity, clarity, wisdom, and loving kindness can emerge. Under these conditions, change and healing happens. I work best with people who are curious about their inner world and open to the possibility that within their suffering there may be the seeds of powerful transformation.