How I work with chronic pain and illness

So how do you retrain the brain and nervous system?

First, we will explore where the danger signals are coming from. With chronic symptoms, they tend to come from a few places: unprocessed trauma and the emotions we've buried alongside it, the lifelong patterns and pressures we live under, and the fear that builds up around the symptoms themselves. The work we do together targets all of it.

Starting with the body

Somatic Therapy works directly with the nervous system and how your body has learned to respond to stress and difficult experiences. Somatic work helps you notice and understand what's happening in your body, build a sense of safety, and release patterns of tension and activation. A "regulated nervous system" can handle what life throws at it without getting stuck. This matters for neuroplastic symptoms because the nervous system is often stuck in survival mode.

Easing the fight with your symptoms

As we work with your nervous system, we also begin changing your relationship to your symptoms. I mean, they're unpleasant at best and debilitating at worst, so it makes total sense we'd want them to go away! Yet the fear of and resistance to the symptoms are keeping your nervous system in alarm mode.

Drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Pain Reprocessing Therapy, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, we work toward something that often sounds counterintuitive at first: accepting what's happening — the thoughts, feelings, sensations, limitations. I know, this sounds like a tall order right now! Acceptance here doesn't mean liking how you feel, and it definitely doesn't mean giving up on getting better. It means stopping the inner fight that keeps sending danger signals to your nervous system. With practice and patience, this shift can make a real difference.

Getting back to the things you've been avoiding

Gradually, you start reincorporating activities into your life, even when symptoms are present. This often begins in your imagination through visualization, so your brain becomes familiar again with the movements and situations. When you feel ready, we move on to doing them in real life. Throughout this process, you'll learn how to pay attention to any sensation that comes up with curiosity and a sense of safety, rather than fear. Over time, this helps the brain unlearn the need to produce persistent symptoms.

Going underneath the symptoms

Because at the root of neuroplastic symptoms are often emotional and behavioral patterns stemming from past trauma and life stressors, we'll address these using techniques from both Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy and Internal Family Systems (commonly known as "parts work"). You'll learn how to gently and safely feel and express the emotions you've held back (e.g., grief, anger, sadness, shame) so that your brain no longer codes them as dangerous. You'll also get to know the parts of you that have been carrying pain or running the show, usually since childhood. These parts just want to feel seen, heard, and loved. You'll develop a deep sense of self-compassion for the emotions that arise at any given moment and all your parts — the part who's people-pleasing, who's afraid to make mistakes, who doesn't feel safe in the world, who needs to prove their worth, or whatever other part you carry.

Working through setbacks

This road has predictable bumps — flares, setbacks, moments of doubt, old fear that resurfaces when you least expect it. This happens because transformation can feel scary to a brain used to certain patterns. Yet these are the moments the brain learns the most! But it's also where most people get stuck, if they don't have the right guidance. I'll meet you where you are and show you the way forward.