Dr. Kathryn Rickard

11/28/2025

✨ Notes From Wanderer ✨
On the Underrated Power of a Quiet Life

In a culture that often equates success with visibility, noise, and accomplishment, I find myself returning to a simple truth: a quiet life is deeply underrated. Not because those who live loudly or ambitiously are any less vital—but because we’ve collectively forgotten the value of anonymity, of stillness, of not always being on display.

There is a particular kind of strength in the spaces where we aren’t constantly perceived, evaluated, or performing.
In taking a walk without urgency.
In smiling at strangers.
In noticing small details in the world that rarely ask for applause.

Some of the most sustaining joys come from the smallest, most unremarkable moments—a warm cup of coffee, blowing out birthday candles, hearing a familiar voice. Our lives don’t need to be a grand spectacle to be meaningful. They don’t need an audience to have worth or impact.

There is depth in living gently.
There is power in being unobserved.
There is peace in the quiet.

— Notes from Wanderer

07/01/2025

🇨🇦 Canada Day

As a Canadian living and working in the U.S., I often reflect on the layered meaning of “home.” For some, today brings pride and gratitude. For others, it brings grief, memory, or a complicated sense of belonging—especially in light of the histories carried by this land.

As a psychoanalytic psychologist, I hold space for all of it—the contradictions, the emotions, the quiet reckonings.

Wishing a thoughtful Canada Day to all who observe it.

06/28/2025

Seneca helped many... even those who betrayed him the most.
He was a mentor, counselor, and moral guide.
And even so, not everyone thanked him.
He was even unjustly accused and forced to die on the orders of the one he had supported the most: Nero.

So why did he do it?

Because for the wise, the soul is not soiled by the ingratitude of others.
Because virtue does not depend on recognition... but of inner cleanliness.
That's Eunoia:
Maintain kindness even when the world gives you silence back.
Acting with purity... even if no one applauds.
To remain noble... even if no one notices.

If you have given a lot and received little...
If it ever hurt you to help and not be valued...
This article can help you:

Don't change your essence for the ungrateful one who didn't know how to see it.
(Author: Carlos Arias)

06/27/2025

Sometimes we forget that growth takes time.
Even Monet tended his garden before he ever picked up a brush.

As a psychoanalytic psychologist, I often sit with people in the in-between—when the seeds are underground and nothing seems to be blooming yet. But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

Give yourself t i m e.
The work beneath the surface matters.

06/19/2025

Appreciating realness…

Despite facing backlash, Alice Neel painted people as she truly saw them: complicated, unique, and imperfect.

During the Great Depression, Alice Neel moved to Spanish Harlem. She lived there for 24 years, painting many who were overlooked by mainstream art: immigrant families, blue-collar workers, people living in poverty. Neel didn’t just see herself as a portraitist; she called herself a “collector of souls.”

Her loved ones became her subjects, and she captured their personalities across generations. But many of her commissioned subjects weren’t pleased.

Several returned their portraits, unhappy with Neel's frank depictions. One person even complained she had portrayed their hands in a “rather cruel” way. Neel’s response? “I wasn’t cruel, nature was.”

Critics even went as far as to say her work resembled caricature, claiming it could be “traced directly back to the pages of Mad Magazine.” They argued she sacrificed “pictorial structure” for her “most immediate feelings.” But those very feelings are what make her art resonate. Without them, it simply wouldn’t connect.

But Neel adamantly refused to compromise her style, even when doing so might have benefited her finances or reputation. She painted what was true to her, persisting for decades in capturing the human experience through her distinctive style.

“You know what it takes to be an artist?” Neel said. “Hypersensitivity and the will of the devil. To never give up.”

Neel’s art received little recognition until she reached her early 60s, when the Graham Gallery began showing her portraits. As the 1960s ushered in massive social change and shook up the art world, Neel’s pioneering work attracted more and more attention.

Today, Neel’s portraits are considered to be among the greatest of 20th century American art.
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🖼 Alice Neel, “Hartley,” 1966, oil on canvas, 50 x 36 in., Gift of Arthur M. Bullowa, On view in our East Building

06/10/2025

What isn’t meant for you will grow heavy in your hands. Let it fall. The lightness that follows is its own kind of grace.

Someone once said:
Who knows maybe it was Meryl Streep, maybe it wasn’t

Let things fall apart — stop exhausting yourself trying to hold them together. Not everything is meant to last forever, and forcing what is already breaking will only drain you. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is let go.

Let people be upset. Let them misunderstand you. Let them criticize and judge. Their opinions are reflections of their own perceptions, not a measure of your worth. You do not need to explain yourself to those who are committed to misunderstanding you. You are not responsible for how others choose to see you or how they react to your truth.

Stop fearing the unknown. Stop asking, Where will I go? What will I do? as if the universe has not already carved a path for you. Loss can feel unbearable, but sometimes, it is simply clearing the way for something better. What is meant to leave will leave, no matter how desperately you try to hold on. What is meant to stay will find a way, no matter how uncertain things seem. Life always finds a way to balance itself, even when we can’t see how.

There is a rhythm to life, a natural order of endings and beginnings. When we resist that flow, we create suffering. We cling to what is breaking, fearing that nothing good will replace it. But this is an illusion. The universe is abundant, constantly unfolding new opportunities, new love, and new purpose. The only thing keeping you from it is your attachment to what no longer belongs to you.

And never, for a second, believe that the best is behind you. Life does not stop offering beauty just because you have endured hardship. The good has not run out. There is still more joy to experience, more love to receive, more peace to be found. But you must be willing to make room for it.

So, ask yourself—What am I holding onto that is holding me back? And when you find the answer, trust yourself enough to let it go. Something better is already on its way.

Image | Meryl Streep by Kurt Markus
Credit to the unknown ✍️ author

06/09/2025

In a world that often asks us to harden, Maya Angelou reminds us that tenderness is its own kind of strength. Her wish—that we continue to be who we are, to meet cruelty with kindness and sorrow with humor—feels more urgent and more possible than ever. May we all carry that wish forward today.

06/09/2025

With Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing (PEP-Web) – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉

06/05/2025

Celebrating Alix Strachey: A Brilliant Mind Behind the Words of Psychoanalysis
Today marks the birthday of Alix Strachey—translator, thinker, and one-half of the remarkable duo who brought Freud’s work into the English-speaking world with clarity and nuance.

🎂 Happy 133rd Birthday to Alix Strachey, born on this day in 1892!

Alix Strachey (1892–1973) was a British psychoanalyst, writer, and translator whose enduring impact on psychoanalysis lies as much in her intellectual contributions as in her role as a bridge between the German and English-speaking psychoanalytic worlds. Educated at Cambridge and deeply embedded in the Bloomsbury circle, she encountered psychoanalysis through her marriage to James Strachey and their travels to Vienna in the 1920s, where they both underwent analysis with Freud.

Strachey was not only one of the first British analysts to be directly analyzed by Freud, but also became one of the key figures in transmitting psychoanalysis to the Anglophone world. Alongside James Strachey, she was responsible for the monumental task of translating Freud’s works into English, a project that resulted in the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, published between 1953 and 1974. Her careful attention to the nuances of Freudian terminology, conceptual consistency, and clinical meaning helped shape how generations of English readers came to understand psychoanalytic theory.

In her own right, Alix Strachey was an active participant in the development of British psychoanalysis during a formative period. She trained and practiced as a psychoanalyst and, though less theoretically prolific than some of her contemporaries, held a key position at the intersection of translation, clinical work, and transmission.

06/02/2025

05/29/2025

In this painting, René Magritte does what he does best: he takes our familiar world, breaks it into pieces, and then reassembles it…

As one of the leading figures of the surrealist movement in 1920s Paris, Magritte’s approach mirrors one of the group’s fundamental principles. The surrealist manifesto, a multi-page written declaration drawn up by André Breton in 1924, states their aim was to “liberate the mind by subverting rational thought and giving free rein to the unconscious.”

That’s why the figure and horse in this painting are somewhat familiar to us: Magritte ingeniously distorts what would be an ordinary scene by creating an optical illusion. He tricks your eye by combining separate elements into one complete image, transforming a horseback rider into a dreamlike vision. 😵‍💫💫

In doing this, Magritte not only takes us out of our world, but exposes how absurd life can sometimes be.
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🖼 René Magritte, “The Blank Signature,” 1965, oil on canvas, 32 x 25 in., Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

05/15/2025

🌼 What do we have against dandelions?

I saw someone mow their lawn in a full sprint this week — just to eliminate a few scattered pops of yellow.

It made me wonder:
Why are we so quick to cut down what’s bright and stubborn and a little bit wild?

Sometimes, what we call “weeds” are just the parts of ourselves we haven't learned to welcome yet.

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