Marriage and Family Therapist, JD, MA, LMFT, CCTP, CAGCS
Being diagnosed with a serious chronic illness or disability can be overwhelming. Whether you are a child, teen, or adult, the most important step you can take is to seek help as soon as you feel less able to cope. Taking action early will help you understand and deal with the many effects of a chronic illness or disability. Learning to manage stress will help you maintain a positive physical, emotional, and spiritual outlook on life. Together we will address your fears, effects on relationships, and specific needs, as you prepare for the challenges ahead. Through therapy you can regain a sense of control and improve your quality of life – something everyone deserves. Your illness or disability need not define you.
Marriage and Family Therapist, MA, MFT #123769, CPT
As someone who suffers from chronic illness, I know, first hand, how isolating and difficult life can be because of it. Finding the words to communicate your experience and feeling like someone understands your experience is necessary to cope with chronic illness and pain.
Whether you are dealing with frequent bodily pains or an ongoing complex and chronic illness, I am here to support you on your journey towards healing. I work with pain and illness from a mindfulness-based orientation. I will help you deepen your relationship to your body and a gain a deeper sense of acceptance in the ups and downs of illness. I work to help build insight around our relationship to pain and illness and help you build skills to reduce suffering.
As a therapist who has personal experience with chronic illness, I can support you in your process of this reality whether new or known, expected or unexpected with kind compassion and to hold space for whatever you are feeling.
While I work with adults and couples, I specialize in treating children and teenagers. I treat children and teenagers who are dealing with depression, who are suicidal, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, cutting, bipolar to name a few issues. I also work with high conflict divorces.
Unfortunately, many ailments are accompanied by pain. While treatment for the underlying issue is under way the pain itself can serve little purpose other than to be an uncomfortable and distracting reminder. Prescription drugs and other substances may be used to dull or mask physical pain, but they are often accompanied by unwanted or dangerous side-effects, and may eventually lose their effectiveness.
Hypnosis offers a drug and side-effect free alternative to pain management. Since pain is a signal interpreted by the the mind, it is possible to re-frame those signals by training the mind's response to them. Using the power of your own imagination to dull, direct, and distract, I'll help you learn to control the sensation and intensity of pain and find relief.
Chronic illness or pain can be an emotional rollercoaster at times. I know! I've been there! We will work together to help you find your way back to managing your life with your unique challenges, gifts, and goals.
Chronic pain can often be a symptom of illness or injury, but it is also present as neuroplastic pain without identifiable structural cause. I use Pain Reprocessing Therapy to help alleviate neuroplastic, psychogenic, and primary pain. I also utilize psychoeducation and mindfulness to help manage the ongoing struggles of any chronic illness.
I offer EMDR both in-person and online to help chronic pain patients process the fear and anxiety associated with pain. I also help to examine thoughts and feelings that might aggravate pain and teach self-soothing meditative skills.