Chronic Pain or Illness

My primary training and practice sites have been in pain clinics, HIV clinics, liver clinics, and primary care clinics. Across those experiences I have developed expertise in treating individuals struggling with a body that is not cooperating. I employ evidence-based treatments like ACT and CBT, but also work hard to address ableism, illness stigma, medical trauma, and other experiences that intersect with one's experience of pain and illness.

I completed my entire counseling training working within the cancer/chronic illness field and continue to do so. I am passionate about helping clients discover ways to regain control and feel "patient active" after a serious diagnosis.

I've worked for 20 years in inpatient and outpatient settings with chronic and acute physical and mental illness. While empathy and support go a long way, learning effective coping strategies takes motivated clients even further down the road towards balance.

As a human who has lived with chronic illness for most of my life, I understand the frustrations and self doubt caused by an invalidating medical system, the struggles of navigating each day with unpredictable symptoms, and the isolation of advocating for yourself with doctors, friends and family. I truly believe in arming yourself with knowledge, becoming your own doctor, and listening to your body. Mindfulness and self-compassion are the mainstays of living with chronic illness.

You feel like crap all the time, and you’re not sure how much longer you can keep this up. Maybe your doctor brushed it off, or told you to lose weight. Maybe they labeled it as “anxiety” just because you have both a vagina and more than one medical problem. You’re starting to lose hope. I get it. I spent decades without diagnosis or treatment, surviving medical neglect, misdiagnosis, and gaslighting by medical professionals. I felt lost and alone, but you don’t have to. I BELIEVE YOU.

Managing chronic illness as a woman comes with unique challenges, and I specialize in providing empathetic support. In our collaborative journey, we develop coping strategies and a personalized approach to enhance your overall well-being. With a focus on resilience, I guide you in navigating the complexities of living with chronic conditions. Together, we'll empower you to thrive and find joy despite the challenges that chronic illness may bring.

Chronic pain and illness suck. They just do. But I can help you to find coping skills to make them suck less (because they're unfortunately never going away). As a fellow "spoonie", I can relate to the feelings of depression, jealousy when you can't do what your friends are doing, and anger at your body and the world for getting this chronic pain or illness.

My primary training and practice sites have been in pain clinics, HIV clinics, liver clinics, and primary care clinics. Across those experiences I have developed expertise in treating individuals struggling with a body that is not cooperating. I employ evidence-based treatments like ACT and CBT, but also work hard to address ableism, illness stigma, medical trauma, and other experiences that intersect with one's experience of pain and illness.

I have extensive experience working with individuals who live with chronic, complex medical conditions. I completed my postdoctoral training at a medical center where I worked closely with patients in addition to training and supervising psychology doctoral students in a Behavioral Medicine program. I use mindfulness-based interventions and strategies to help those live rich, meaningful lives despite

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness, either personally or to someone you love, can be debilitating. I've worked with individuals, couples, and families navigating grief, loss, and illness. I also consider mental health to be a chronic illness and can be disruptive if not addressed in a safe space. Instead of talking about the illness itself (leave that to your medical team), we'll dig into thoughts, feelings, and emotions that surround the sickness.

From 1999-2018 I worked as a social worker in each segment of the health and mental health care system; hospitals, homecare, short term rehab, long term care, hospice, community mental health, inpatient psychiatric care, and other settings providing case management, counseling, therapy and other services to those in need. I also live with a number of chronic health conditions and am involved with the Ehlers Danlos society, Spinal Leak Foundation and Dysautonomia International.

Living with chronic illness or traumatic stress, one might feel overwhelmed and tense on a regular basis or trend more toward feeling numb and shut down, perhaps even dissociated, but regardless of how one's experiences show up in their bodies, one thing remains the same: Being “inside ourselves,” with our thoughts, feelings and emotions, feels scary, confusing and painful. Purposefully creating a sense of safety inside ourselves after trauma, illness or crisis can be likened to returning home.

Receiving a diagnosis; adjusting to lifestyle and medication changes; coping with related changes in mood, emotions, and relationships; managing symptoms and stress.

I have managed asthma and chronic pain for my entire adult life. I love sharing the mind-body approaches I've learned that help me get through flare-ups.

Drawing from CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, and narrative-therapy based approaches, my work surrounding chronic pain / illness aims to build personally-tailored grounding and coping skills in order to support individuals' unique daily needs and, perhaps more importantly, aspires to develop a broader sense of identity/self as a part of ongoing resilience and acceptance of various chronic conditions.

I have had extensive experience and training in working with individuals navigating chronic pain and illness. I've worked with a variety of diagnoses from arthritis to cancer, and believe therapy can give us the tools to take some control back and find meaning again.

Disability changes your life. Many people live with chronic illnesses, and yet so much is unknown about our health. Just like supportive and affirming medical care, disability-affirming therapy can be hard to find. In therapy, we can attend to grief, identity loss, and shifts in worldview as well as more practical ups and downs of navigating life with chronic illness. It is important to me to bring a disability justice approach into therapy.

I also work with clients who have been diagnosed with one or more chronic illnesses. They often experience symptoms of anxiety or depression due to the toll that the illness has taken on their lives. We work together to develop a plan to decrease their anxiety and depression and to help them cope with the symptoms of their illness. We also work to help them increase their support network, and to become more willing to ask for help from others since this can often be difficult for them.

Living with illness, disability, and/or chronic pain can leave you feeling isolated as you navigate changing relationships, medical care, stretched finances, grief for what's been lost, fear about the future, experiences of invisibility/hypervisibility, and anger about how you've been treated. I work from a Disability Justice model, grappling with the ways in which our world often fails to provide accommodation and access, and how our lives become shaped by that lack of care and recognition.