Barbara Rubel

Barbara Rubel, BS, MA, BCETS, DAAETS, is a nationally recognized author and keynote speaker and trainer on increasing self-awareness of skills and strengths that improve the ability to handle job burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma. Barbara’s programs motivate professionals to build personal resilience. Barbara is the author of the book, But I Didn’t Say Goodbye and the 30-hour continuing education course book for Nurses, Loss, Grief, and Bereavement: Helping individuals cope (4th ed.). She is a contributing writer in Thin Threads: Grief and renewal; Open to Hope’s Fresh Grief; Coaching for results: Expert advice from 25 Top international coaches; and Keys to a Good Life: Wisdom to unlock your power within. Barbara was featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Fatal Mistakes: families shattered by suicide, narrated by Mariette Hartley. She also developed the Palette of Grief® Program: Understanding Reactions after a Traumatic Death Barbara’s background includes working as a hospice bereavement coordinator and serving as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, where she taught undergraduate and masters-level courses in Death, Life and Health; Children and Death; Health Crisis Intervention; and Health Counseling. She currently is a consultant with the Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime and co-wrote their training curriculum, Compassion Fatigue/Vicarious Trauma. Barbara received a BS in Psychology and MA in Community Health, with a concentration in thanatology, from Brooklyn College. She is a board-certified expert in traumatic stress and diplomat with the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress.

Articles:

Is SAD Due to the Darkness of Grief or Darkness of the Season?

What is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)? In the beginning of the fall until the end of the winter many people experience Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a seasonal depression. There is less daylight during the fall and winter and serotonin, the neurochemicals in your brain that regulate your mood and functioning are effected. Also, too much melatonin, a brain hormone produced during the hours of darkness, causes depressive symptoms. Although your body expects to go to sleep when it is dark and wake up when it is light, that’s not the case in the fall and winter months. Your biological clock […]

Seasonal Affective Disorder in the Workplace

Is it difficult to get out of bed in the morning and go to work? Perhaps you can’t pinpoint why you feel the way you do, but something just does not feel right. You are not yourself and can’t understand why your mood has recently drastically changed. Dark winter months can cause a common disorder called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), otherwise known as seasonal depression that occurs at the same time every year. SAD is a type of depression that occurs in those between the ages of 20 and 40 with the main sufferers being women in their twenties and […]

Dealing with Traumatic Anniversaries

Do you remember where you were when you heard the news that America was attacked by terrorists? Earlier generations knew where they were when FDR gave his D-Day speech and President Kennedy was assassinated. Millions of people were intimately affected as their safe world was shattered on September 11th. I was teaching a Masters course titled, “Crisis Intervention” in New York City university. How could I possibly teach students about crisis when they were personally living through one? As I reflect on that time, my heart still aches for those who perished and for their families and friends, who still […]

Celebrating the Birth of Triplets While Mourning Dad’s Suicide

I wish you could have been there . . . It was quite a sight. Three infant car seats with tiny faces and six wiggling hands and feet. We were going home, but my father would not be there to greet us. I had spent the last four weeks of my pregnancy in the hospital, and, during that time, my loving dad had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was gone, and I had three children to love. Although I had complete bed rest throughout my pregnancy, I irrationally felt guilty after his death because I […]

20 Questions to Ask Your Terminally Ill Loved One

What is Palliative Care and Hospice? If you have been told that your loved one is terminally ill, this article will help you identify palliative care, hospice, advanced care planning, Five Wishes, and questions to ask during this difficult time. Let’s first look at palliative care,which helps individuals improve their quality of life by providing prevention and relief of suffering, early identification, holistic assessment and treatment of pain, and support for physical, psychosocial, spiritual and bereavement issues (WHO, 2008). Hospice, on the other hand, offers care when curative medical treatments no longer enhance quality of life. Although Hospice is most […]

20 Tips to Manage Grief During the First Holiday

What would the world be like without holidays? Each year, families and friends look forward to sharing these special times together. This is often not the case for the bereaved, especially during the first holiday after a loss. If I were to ask you what you needed this holiday season, what would you say? Just like you, I was brought up to believe that holidays are fun and joyful. But now that you are grieving, it can make the holidays a painful and exhausting experience. Take the time to find healing activities and appreciate your life. Look at what your […]

Support Groups Can Help Those Bereaved by Suicide

But I didn’t say goodbye! That’s all I could think about when I learned that my dad killed himself. Friends said that he “was no longer in pain,” and that he loved me. But I didn’t say goodbye and those words weighed heavy on my grieving heart. Approximately 4.5 million Americans became bereaved by suicide in the last 25 years with 199,800 bereaved added in 2006 (AAS, 2009). Sadly, I became a part of that statistic in 1986 when my father killed himself while I was in the hospital awaiting the birth of my triplets. I personally found that attending […]

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