Chronic Illness Therapy
Is A Chronic Illness Impacting Your Emotional Health?
Are your symptoms making it hard to fully function and be present in your relationships?
Do you find yourself bargaining with the past and wishing you could have your old life back?
Are you tired of spending countless hours each day tending to your symptoms and managing flareups?
Maybe you’re struggling with chronic fatigue, arthritis, fibromyalgia, lupus, Lyme disease, or another chronic health issue. Or perhaps you’re dealing with a condition that hasn’t been diagnosed.
No matter what your health challenges are, they’ve probably taken a toll on your mental health. Your symptoms could be causing severe emotional pain. Some days, you may be so busy tending to your symptoms that you have no time or energy to exercise, take care of your kids, or do the things you love. It’s like your chronic illness takes up all your brain power. As a result, you may be considering getting deeper emotional support.
You Might Be Tired Of Trying To Navigate A Broken Medical System
Sometimes, your life may feel like a never-ending slew of doctor’s appointments and medical bills. Perhaps you’ve been prescribed a cocktail of medications, but none of them have given you the relief you want. What’s more, you may have dealt with medical professionals who discount your symptoms or don’t believe your diagnosis. You’re probably tired of going from specialist to specialist, getting no answers, and being met with lack of empathy and understanding.
You deserve to have someone in your life who will support you, validate you, and believe your story. As a therapist specializing in helping people navigate life with a chronic illness, it’s my goal to fulfill that role in your journey. I seek to combine the latest research in neuroscience with a deep and abiding sense of compassion, allowing clients to thrive in spite of their health challenges.
Most People With Chronic Illnesses Struggle To Find Adequate Support
It’s no secret that our medical system is broken. Not only do patients have to wrestle with exorbitant costs, but many medical professionals only treat the symptoms and never address the underlying stressors or traumas. Doctors aren’t trained in the effects of early childhood trauma, yet trauma often goes hand in hand with chronic illnesses. As a result, many people go from specialist to specialist without ever getting to the root of their struggles.
On top of having to navigate a broken medical system, people with chronic conditions have to deal with rising costs of living and a stressful sociopolitical climate. Additionally, most people today lack the tribal and familial support that provides nurturing structure to their lives. We are meant to live in community with one another, yet our increasingly individualistic world has made us more isolated than ever.
Chronic Pain is Often Connected To Trauma And Emotional Distress
Oftentimes, a physical symptom may be a manifestation of a deeper emotional issue or trauma. Our nervous systems react to incoming sensory information, and in turn, generate a cascade of neurochemical reactions that can affect our immune systems, potentially resulting in chronic illnesses and autoimmune illnesses. When we can help our nervous system out of the fight-flight-freeze responses that trigger this cascade of neurochemical reactions, there is hope for symptom relief.
Counseling is a chance to challenge your trauma responses so that you can reduce these neurochemical reactions and stop letting the pain of the past interfere with your life today.
Therapy Can Help You Thrive In Spite Of Your Chronic Illness
Prior to becoming a therapist, I worked in biotechnology for 15 years. My educational background is in biochemistry with a specific interest in neuroscience. I still have a strong understanding of neuroscience and how it relates to healing, and I bring this into my work with clients. I am deeply interested in the stress-disease connection, as neuroscience has demonstrated that physical symptoms are often connected to emotional distress and unprocessed trauma (1).
What’s more, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2004, so I understand the struggle of chronic illness firsthand. I am fully recovered today, so I also understand what it’s like to experience healing and relief. I bring this experience into my work with clients, as it allows me to relate to them on a deep mind-body level.
The goal of chronic illness counseling is to listen to your body so that we can understand what it’s saying. For example, many people with chronic conditions struggle with over-functioning. They end up overextending themselves, caretaking for others excessively, and burning themselves out (2). Therapy can help you understand all the different parts of yourself—including the parts that are over-functioning—so that you can live a more balanced life.
Tailoring My Approach To Chronic Illness Therapy
I generally begin therapy by taking a thorough developmental and trauma history so that you and I have a roadmap for our work together. We will explore any underlying trauma that’s connected to your chronic health issues, as there are certain diseases that are often linked to preverbal trauma.
Mindfulness is usually the first skill I encourage clients to develop, since it can be incredibly useful for pain management during flareups. I teach breathwork and yoga exercises to facilitate balance in the nervous system, as I am a certified yoga instructor in addition to being a therapist. By incorporating deep breathing, movement, and other somatic techniques into therapy, I will teach you how you can release the stress in your body and reduce chronic pain episodes.
I also draw heavily from Internal Family Systems (IFS), an approach to therapy that can help you understand how the different parts of your personality are related to your symptoms. For example, there may be a part of you that is afraid of getting well because of how it will change your daily life and relationships. If your condition gets better, perhaps you will have to work again or you won’t need your partner to take care of you anymore. In this way, there is often a part that is reluctant to heal and is characterized by thoughts like, “If I stay sick then I’ll be taken care of.” IFS can help you get to know all your parts, make peace with them, and prevent them from controlling your decision-making. I also incorporate Hakomi and EMDR therapy into my work with chronic illness.
By fusing therapeutic approaches with the best that neuroscience has to offer, I’m confident that I can help you experience both physical and emotional relief and find peace in the midst of chronic illness.
You May Have Some Questions About Chronic Illness Therapy…
If I have a physical illness, how can therapy help?
The mind and body are intimately connected. Many of the physical symptoms that we experience are a manifestation of deeper emotional issues. Therapy may not be able to eliminate your chronic illness, but it can make living with it easier. Neurochemical reactions can impact the immune system, and therapy seeks to calm these neurochemical reactions. It can help your body break out of the stress responses that are fueling or exacerbating your pain, making it an invaluable tool for both physical and emotional health.
Do you have the experience to really help me?
I have over two decades of experience working with trauma, and trauma often results in chronic illness. I look for the root cause and what the symptoms may be saying about it. Some chronic illnesses are rooted in early, pre-verbal trauma. For example, fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue may be rooted in a lack of early comfort and nourishment, making it harder to feel grounded and safe in the body. My background as a therapist and in neuroscience helps me explore such challenges on an in-depth level.
What if I don’t have the money for therapy?
I often say that, personally, I couldn’t afford not to go to therapy. While therapy is certainly a financial investment, the benefits usually far outweigh the costs. Besides, it’s worth considering how much money you’ve already spent on doctors and other treatment methods. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health, and that’s why therapy is so vital when you’re dealing with a chronic illness.
Find Peace In The Midst Of Pain
If you’re living with a chronic illness, you deserve to have someone in your life who will empathize with you, believe your story, and offer real-life skills for pain management. To learn more about my approach to chronic illness counseling, you can call (303) 507-6310 or fill out the contact form.
(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3318917/
(2) Mate, Gabor. The Myth of Normal and When The Body Says No: Exploring The Stress-Disease Connection. Avery Publishing and Trade Paper Press, 2022 and 2011.
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