Kenneth H Kaplan, M.D.

Kenneth H. Kaplan, M.D., former chief of psychiatric Consultation, Liason and Psychosomatic Services at the Boston University School of Medicine and director of the Psychosomatic Liason Clinic at Boston City Hospital, died peacefully on Friday, October 11, 2024 at home. He was 84 years old.

Dr. Kaplan was born in Boston in 1940 to Abraham L. Kaplan and Gertrude Kemler Kaplan. He grew up in Revere and Medford, graduating from Medford High School, where he played both offensive and defensive football, in 1958. A lifelong athlete, Dr. Kaplan loved cycling and skiing. After he retired from private practice in 2019, he began seriously studying piano, an avocation that took him back to the musical roots he had had as a child. He was a loving father, brother, and husband, and he nurtured lifelong friendships. He also had a deep connection with the beauty of Provincetown, a love of reading, and an insatiable desire for chocolate desserts. At the age of nine, when his father died, Dr. Kaplan became very close to his favorite uncle, the late Dr. Norman Kemler. Following in his uncle's footsteps, Dr. Kaplan became a pre-med student at the University of Vermont, where he majored in philosophy and minored in chemistry, and graduated in 1962. Without knowing a word of German, Dr. Kaplan went to Switzerland to study at the University of Zurich School of Medicine, graduating in 1968. In his limited spare time in medical school, he travelled to Russia and Germany and hiked and skied as often as he could in the Alps. He obtained his Certificate in Psychoanalysis in 1977 from the Psychoanalytic Division of New York Medical College and was an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine for many years.

A lifelong meditator with a keen interest in Buddhism, Dr. Kaplan was director of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program at Metro West Medical Center from 1995 to 2000 and of the same program at Newton-Wellesley Hospital from 1990-2012. Dr. Kaplan also became certified in 1999 in another form of therapy called EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. This technique trains a patient to move his or her eyes in a specific way that helps mitigate trauma and PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But it was later in his career that Dr. Kaplan became enthusiastically involved with a type of psychotherapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS) that he ultimately deemed most effective in helping patients uncover and heal deep-seated psychological pain.

He is survived by his wife, Judy Foreman, of Newton; his son, Lawrence David Kaplan of Weston; his daughter, Diane Kaplan Broomell of Arlington, his grandchildren Violet Catherine Kaplan and Stella Nadia Rose Kaplan of Weston and Iain Skylar Broomell of Arlington. He is also survived by his sister, Elaine Kaplan Dolph and Jim Dolph of Portsmouth, NH.

A public Memorial will be held Sunday, November 17, from 10 a.m. to noon, at the Eaton & Mackay Funeral Home, 465 Centre Street, NEWTON, MA.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Greater Boston Food Bank, GBH Beacon Circle and by check to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Office of Philanthropy with Kenneth Kaplan/Dr. David K. Simon fund.

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