About Treatment
Gay Therapist NYC | Chronic Pain Therapist
Clinical Focus: the 3 Parts of Chronic Pain Recovery
1 - Do the psychological work. Get the accurate information about pain. Understand it, internalize it, and believe it. From there, we can calm the brain and nervous system with messages of safety, because there's nothing wrong with your body. It's safe to feel physical sensations. And you can slowly reengage in activities you thought you had to give up.
2 - Do the emotional work. Teach your brain and nervous system that it's safe to feel your emotions. All of your emotions. Chronic pain is caused by the emotions you don't acknowledge, don't address, don't process, and don't feel. So we're going to feel them - and teach your brain that you can handle it.
3 - Patiently attune to your true self. Learn to trust yourself, attune to yourself, align with yourself, treat yourself with compassion, and feel the potential vastness of your own power. Chronic pain is an invitation to learn your deeper truths and learn who you really are.
If this doesn't make sense yet, that's okay. These are the basic fundamentals. We'll work on all three together...and your pain will start to recede. For sure.
Individual Psychotherapy:
the Logistics
Weekly individual appointments are 45 minutes in length and take place online via telehealth.
This means you get to choose any comfortable space for your therapy sessions.
Appointments are scheduled in a weekly slot that'll repeat each week until you're ready to be done.
Please reach out for a consultation if you'd like to get started.
EMDR
I practice EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a specialized form of trauma treatment.
A body-based modality, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to help you reprocess traumatic memories.
EMDR easily lends itself to online therapy and it's an excellent way to access the deeper emotions triggering your chronic pain.
Resources
I recommend all my clients take time to learn about mind-body treatment. Understanding the mind-body connection is a key part of the psychological work. Your brain and nervous system will calm down as you learn more about mind-body healing and integrate the information into your lifestyle. As the brain and nervous system relax, the physical symptoms abate. Here's a list of resources, books, websites, podcasts, videos, and all the stuff that'll help you. Each of the resources below helped me, so I recommend all with confidence: