The human side of health.
Therapy for health & medical experiences.
Online therapy for women navigating chronic illness, health changes, and medical experiences. Serving clients in Medford, Portland, Bend, and across Oregon.
You know your body.
The impact of health and medical experiences can reach well beyond your physical body and stay with you, shaping your identity, relationships, daily life, and plans for the future. Many people spend years explaining their symptoms and advocating for themselves in medical settings, and come away questioning themselves or wondering if their concerns were taken seriously. Therapy is a place where your experience is believed.
You may be navigating. . .
A health condition or chronic illness that has changed your every day life.
Grief and loss for parts of your sense of self that no longer feel the same.
Trying to return or reconnect to yourself and who you are amidst changes in your body.
Experiencing emotional burden from managing your health while keeping up with life.
Medical experiences where you felt dismissed, not believed, or had to fight to be heard.
How I can help.
Common areas of support.
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Adjustment to a health condition often isn’t a one time thing, it’s an ongoing process. You may find your footing and then days, weeks, or months later you have a new set of symptoms, a flare, or an entirely new condition and something shifts. In therapy you can have space to process what has changed and any emotions that come up.
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Living with chronic illness can erode your sense of self over time. Changes in your body, what you can do, and how you experience your life can shift how you see yourself. Experiences within medical care can add to that, particularly when being dismissed, or viewed as a “complicated” case. Counseling can help you separate what has happened to you from who you are and reconnect with parts of yourself that may have gotten lost along the way.
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Finding your voice as a patient can be an important part of living with a health condition. Therapy can help you get clearer about what matters to you, identify what you need from your care, and strengthen your voice so you can participate more fully in decisions about your health and your life.
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Living with chronic illness can change your relationship with your body and make it harder to know what to trust. Therapy can offer space to reconnect with your own experience, become more attuned to what your body is telling you, and strengthen trust in yourself.
Who am I now?
Looking at the whole picture, with you at the center.
Your illness experience is a part of who you are, but it isn't all of you. As a rehabilitation counselor, I look at the whole person, body and mind, in the context of your life. Together, we can explore how illness has affected your identity, your sense of agency, your relationships with yourself and others, and the life you want to have. We make room for what has been lost or changed, and for the ongoing work of adapting to life as it is now.
“To swim in the ocean of unknowing, that is my constant work.”
~ Suleika Jaouad
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
FAQs
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Yes. I work with people who are adjusting and adapting to living with chronic illness, including the effects on identity, relationships, daily life, independence, and expectations for the future. I also work with folks who are newly diagnosed with or recovering from a health condition.
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Yes. Adjusting to a health condition can involve much more than learning to manage symptoms. Illness can affect how you see yourself, what you expect from your life, your relationships, and what feels possible. Counseling provides space to work through those areas, including grief, identity, work, and the realities of living with your health.
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Absolutely. If you've felt dismissed, misunderstood, or simply left with an experience you haven't known what to do with, you can work on that in therapy.
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This is Why Women Are Scared to Tell Their Doctors the Truth, by Allison Sweet Grant (NYTimes)
Women Are Calling Out Medical Gaslighting, by Melinda Wenner Moyer (NYTimes)
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, by Suleika Jaouad
Good Days, Bad Days: The Self in Chronic Illness and Time, by Kathy Charmaz
The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Illness, and the Human Condition, by Arthur Kleinman
Connection · Depth · Meaning
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Connection · Depth · Meaning —