Kathryn Alice Jackson, 78, of Cambridge, for many years a counselor, teacher, and mentor of young adults, died peacefully with her husband by her side on Thursday, September 10, 2026.

Kathryn’s life trajectory was eloquently summarized by her father early in her college career, when he wrote to her that “you feel deeply about things that others barely notice.” This reflected not only her perceptiveness and creativity about human emotion and behavior, but also her lifelong analysis and pursuit of social justice. Indeed, it was her unique way of combining attention to personal struggles with an awareness of social and political influences that made her such a nurturing presence for students and colleagues alike.

Kathryn was born in Detroit, Michigan on October 6, 1947, the daughter of James E. Jackson, Jr. and Esther Cooper Jackson, lifelong activists for social change and steadfast advocates for civil rights. The advent of McCarthyism profoundly affected the family, her father being indicted and absent for 5 years. Her parents’ political commitments deeply influenced who she was from an early age: as the legend goes, Kathryn kicked an FBI agent who was outside their door at age 5. Fortunately, during the years her father was away, the family was enriched with many cultural opportunities, and always surrounded by many family friends and supporters.

At the same time, the experience of her father’s indictment and absence was traumatic for a very young child, and she remained keenly aware all her life of the effects of political repression on individuals and families. Throughout her life, from childhood civil rights marches to No Kings Day this past March, Kathryn joined with others in protesting for the advancement of human rights.

Kathryn attended Goddard College in Vermont, where she began her academic career when a chapter of her senior thesis, on African American literature of the 20th Century, was published in the journal Freedomways. Following college, she planned to be a teacher and obtained an MAT degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Then she student taught literature in a non-traditional high school. She joined her first husband for a year and a half in Mongolia, where he conducted research and she taught literature to teachers who wished to improve their English.

As that marriage was ending, she moved to Philadelphia, worked as a college academic advisor, and then decided that a career in counseling was the best fit for her talents and interests. She received an MEd in counseling at Temple University, worked as a group and family therapist, and completed an externship in family therapy at the prestigious Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic. After deciding to pursue a PhD in psychology at Temple, she spent a memorable summer returning to Mongolia as a tour guide for a group of Americans.

Kathryn’s PhD dissertation was a monumental endeavor that grew directly from her retrospective view of her childhood experience as she approached midlife. Framing the personal effects of the McCarthy era on children as political trauma, she traveled nationwide to conduct intensive interviews with 20 “red scare” survivors regarding their midlife views of childhood experience and subsequent development, discerning several core themes. She noted that the research process itself helped her own healing journey, and possibly that of some participants as well.

For her doctoral internship, Kathryn again exemplified her lifelong pursuit of travel adventures by journeying to the University of California, Irvine Counseling Center, where she was one of four African American women in her cohort.

Kathryn then returned East to a new job at Boston University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Counseling Center. There she joined a rapidly growing staff of psychologist colleagues, worked with students individually and in groups, supervised interns, and led educational programs and seminars.

Also, on the day of her initial job interview at BU, she met a psychologist who was her same age, David Seeman. About four years later, on January 20, 1991, they married in Belmont, MA, where they lived for several years before moving to the home in Cambridge where they remained for 30 years. They became regular participants in the music, art, theatre, and literary scenes in the area, and delighted in regular travel adventures. These took them to most of New England, various spots in the U.S., and starting in the early 2000’s, to Europe and later South Africa.

From 2007 on, Kathryn became adept at finding fascinating conferences in intriguing places abroad and developing papers to present, while David crafted the itineraries. Although David usually presented a paper at these conferences as well, and on several memorable occasions they presented jointly on working with college students dealing with political trauma, Kathryn almost always supplied the initial momentum for these trips.

Perhaps the most notable presentation, in Madrid in 2007 for the Collegium for African American Research, addressed questions of how psychological trauma experienced by black activists intersected with the heroic stances that they were expected to portray, and the resulting paradoxes of their struggles to create social change.

It should also be noted that these travels always incorporated views of local politics, literature, and the arts. Indeed, in three different years they presented at the annual International Conference on Psychology and the Arts in different European settings.

In 2002, Kathryn decided to move on from BU and joined the Counseling Center at Suffolk University, also in Boston. This represented an expansion of her career possibilities in several ways. She had the joy of supervising and mentoring doctoral interns on a regular basis, as well as teaching a supervision seminar. The opportunity for a joint academic position allowed her to teach classes, such as “Life Lessons from the Writings of Alice Walker,” addressing in a freshman writing seminar the impact of social issues on development. She also published several academic journal papers during this time, as well as a collection of poems in the Journal of Poetry Therapy. She was awarded tenure as an Associate Professor in 2009. She retired from Suffolk in 2014 as an Associate Professor Emerita.

After retirement, Kathryn and David continued to travel nationally and internationally. She continued to write personal nonfiction as she had pursued journal writing throughout her life, presented this work in writing workshops, and expanded her creative pursuits by taking art classes. The writing, like everything else in her life, brought together the personal with the political. And the nurturing also continued, as she and David cared for Kathryn’s mother, who lived for 7 years at a nursing facility in Boston.

Kathryn’s life, considered retrospectively, appears to be all of a piece: experiencing and witnessing political trauma through a family psychology lens, finding ways to heal from it, nurturing others through it, and using the arts and literature as therapeutic aids in the process. Her counseling, supervision, mentoring, teaching, writing, and even traveling all reflect the weaving together of these integral facets.

In a recent New Yorker book review, Meghan O’Gieblyn, discussing an essay by philosopher Iris Murdoch, writes the following: “The work of a moral life, then, is to expand the field of vision.” Nothing could better summarize Kathryn’s life and impact.

Kathryn is survived by her husband, David Seeman; her sister, Harriet Jackson Scarupa; her nephew, Mark Scarupa; and her great nephews, Evan and Adam Scarupa. The friendships that Kathryn maintained over the years were notable for their extraordinary mutual loyalty, and several of those friends survive her as well.

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A memorial service celebrating Kathryn’s life will be held at a time to be determined later in the fall; details will be announced.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Kathryn’s memory may be made to the Rosenberg Fund for Children, to CurePSP, or to the charity of your choice.