When she was a little girl, Lauren Buckley used to daydream about getting married and having a big family.
“All I ever wanted was to get married,” she recalls. “I wanted to have seven kids. That’s all I ever wanted! I was so excited when I got pregnant. I was so happy.”
We’re sitting on cozy, overstuffed furniture in the office of her private practice, Quiet Light Counseling, in Wilton. The walls are painted a soothing shade of purple, with gentle reminders tucked into the décor to “Be Kind” and “Do Your Best.”
“Halfway through my pregnancy, I had a medical issue come up,” Lauren continues. “One of the nurses called to tell me, but she didn’t have a lot of information. So I did something I tell my clients not to do—I Googled the condition.”
The results were terrifying, and Lauren began to spiral. At the time, she was working as a school counselor. Her assistant principal, who was also pregnant, encouraged her to go home and take care of herself—but that felt impossible.
“I had a lot of stress the last few months of the pregnancy, but at no point did anyone ask, ‘Are you okay? Are you too stressed out?’ I was still working full time and just kept plugging through.”
Her labor was long and frightening, but her daughter—now 11—was born healthy.
“I had no idea what it was,” she recalls. “But right away, I knew something wasn't right.”
No one had ever talked to her about postpartum depression or anxiety. When the new family came home from the hospital, Lauren felt… nothing.
“I was completely numb. I didn’t want anyone visiting me. I couldn’t have music on in the house. I needed silence. My husband recognized something wasn’t right, but we kept plugging through. I thought, Maybe this is what it’s like to be a new parent. Maybe everyone feels this way.”
Lauren’s husband, Dr. Patrick Buckley, is a physical therapist and owner of Dynamic Edge Physiotherapy. By chance, he was treating a perinatal therapist and mentioned what was happening at home. She asked if Lauren might be experiencing postpartum depression.
After six long months of suffering, Lauren finally got the help she desperately needed.
“This is my background—mental health! How did I not recognize this was happening to me? Slowly I started getting support—through the perinatal therapist, through just being open with other people. I joined a mom’s group. It took time—it wasn’t until my daughter’s second birthday that I felt completely out of the woods. But I got there.”
Lauren had been a school counselor for 14 years, mostly working with middle school students. Over time, she began to notice a pattern: the root of many students’ struggles often traced back to their family systems.
“I couldn’t just address the kids—I had to look at the bigger picture,” she says. “I started thinking, I want to be doing something different. Then I had an aha moment of how everything could come together and began to pursue my licensure.”
Now a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and National Certified Counselor (NCC), Lauren opened her own practice, Quiet Light Counseling, three years ago. It’s allowed her to shift her focus to adults, weaving together her background with children, her belief in the importance of family systems, and her personal experience with postpartum depression.
The name, “Quiet Light,” was inspired by the gentle light of sunrise and sunset—times of day that Lauren finds most peaceful. (“I always try to take a deep breath and enjoy it for a moment.”) It also reflects the faith that hat shepherded her through the darkest chapter of her life.
Today, the practice offers group therapy, couples counseling, and individual counseling with a focus on maternal and paternal mental health. Whether during pregnancy, after the birth of a child, or while parenting teens, Lauren uses cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy to help parents build resilience for themselves and their families.
“When parents are healthy, kids are going to be healthier,” she says. “That contributes to health in our whole society. So we work on mindset—how we care for ourselves emotionally and physically, and how we regulate our emotions.”
Lauren shares a startling statistic: one in five women will experience a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder. To help support moms through this vulnerable time, she runs a psychotherapy group for women who are pregnant, newly postpartum, or further along in their parenting journey.
“We work on skills for anxiety, depression, keeping your relationship alive, all of it,” she says. “And they’re my favorite thing to do, because the moms bond so much that they form their own little community. They see they’re not alone, they’re not the only ones feeling this way. That’s the best part—the bond, even more than the skills.”
Fathers are often overlooked when it comes to discussions of parental mental health. Lauren is trying to break those barriers, sharing that she has many clients who are dads struggling with perinatal mood or anxiety disorders.
“Dads can suffer from these disorders too. It might not present the same way, but it’s there,” she shares.
Many of the fathers she sees grapple with what she calls “provider pressure”—the weight of holding everything together if their partner is struggling, or worrying if the couple isn’t where they want to be financially.
Lauren acknowledges how overwhelming parenting can feel today. Adding to the stress for both mothers and fathers is the constant comparison and relentless noise of social media.
“You’re always seeing what everyone else is doing and hearing advice—whether the person giving it is an expert or not. And so much of it is contradictory! Kids are growing up faster because of technology, and we didn’t grow up like this, so how do we adapt? A lot of what I do is teaching people to slow down, be mindful, and trust their instincts. It’s okay if what feels right for your family looks different from someone else’s.”
Lauren works with couples at every stage of life, offering specialized support for those weathering difficult seasons. Whether they’re facing high conflict, communication breakdowns, infidelity, betrayal or trust issues, addiction or trauma, emotional disconnection, parenting stress, trying for a baby, navigating the teenage years, or simply figuring out how to keep their relationship alive—Lauren provides a compassionate space for healing.
“The stress of careers, parenting, finances, or unexpected challenges can quietly chip away at the connection you once shared,” she says. “The relationship that once felt effortless might now feel like hard work—or even out of reach. Many of my clients reach a point where they look at each other and wonder: When did we stop liking each other? When did we stop being friends?”
Using the Gottman Method—a research-based, skill-driven approach developed by psychologists Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman—Lauren helps couples manage conflict, rebuild friendship and connection, create shared meaning, enhance intimacy, and establish rituals and goals that support lasting love. For couples ready to dig in and do the work, she says, the results often come quickly—sometimes within a few months.
“It’s so easy to brush these issues under the rug,” she says. “But more couples are starting to say, ‘We can get out of this and feel better. We don't have to wait until our kids go to college to reconnect.’ And that's been really encouraging.”
Given Lauren’s experience with postpartum depression, it might seem ironic that she’s full of gratitude—but she says she’s thankful for it, because it shaped her into the counselor she is today: someone helping individuals and couples navigate their own dark seasons.
“I was so down on myself, so deflated in terms of my own confidence,” she recalls. “I pitied myself and wondered why everyone else had such an easy postpartum experience. But now I look back and I’m thankful I went through that. My clients can sense that I deeply empathize with them. I understand how scared and hopeless they might feel. Having survived that, I can promise them there’s hope on the other side.”
To make her practice as accessible as possible, Lauren understands that sometimes clients need to bring their babies or toddlers to sessions—she keeps a box of toys under her desk to entertain little ones and a recliner in case a mom needs to feed her baby.
“That's totally okay with me,” she says, smiling. “Whatever makes counseling more accessible—bring the babies!”
For more information on Quiet Light Counseling, please visit quietlightcounseling.com. Call (203) 589-1217 or email quietlightcounseling@gmail.com to get started. And follow @quietlightcounseling on Instagram for tips and advice.
“Right away, I knew something wasn't right.”
“My clients can sense that I deeply empathize with them. I understand how scared and hopeless they might feel.”