Psychotherapy for Chronic Pain, Illness, Trauma, & Nervous System Healing
Psychotherapy for Chronic Pain, Illness, Trauma, & Nervous System Regulation
Telehealth for adults and couples in Arizona seeking a path beyond symptom management
Telehealth therapy for adults and couples in Arizona seeking a deeper path beyond managing symptoms
You might be here because…
You’ve been told “everything looks normal”… but your body doesn’t agree.
You've spent months or years searching for answers and still don't feel fully understood.
Symptoms come and go in ways that don’t seem logical.
You’ve felt dismissed or misunderstood by past providers.
Medical explanations may have helped, but they haven't brought you symptom relief.
You’ve wondered if it means it’s “all just in my head….”
All pain is real pain…
Rather than fighting against your symptoms, we'll explore how stress, trauma, and nervous system patterns may be influencing your pain or chronic condition. We'll explore meaningful pathways that support your resilient engagement with yourself, the important people in your life, and what matters most to you.
Soothe Your Nervous System
Your nervous system is working hard to help you through life’s challenges, even if it doesn’t always feel like it! Sometimes prolonged stress, illness, trauma, or physical and emotional pain can amplify the nervous system into triggered states that may keep your brain focused on danger rather than connection or calm. Therapy can help you develop awareness, safety, trust in yourself, your felt experiences, and the body’s capacity to respond differently.
Chronic Pain & Illness
Chronic pain and illness can affect your identity, relationships, work life, and make daily functioning an exhausting battle. Therapy gives you a space to explore how your symptoms, fears, and ways your system learned to protect itself influence your chronic pain or chronic illness. You deserve more than simply enduring or managing. Together, we can work toward transformational change.
Trauma, PTSD, & Stress
Chronic pain and emotional distress often exist alongside months, years, or even decades of accumulated stress. Experiential therapeutic approaches help decrease the emotional charge from past events and future worries, leaving space for growth.
Anxiety, Depression, & OCD
Chronic pain rarely travels alone! Together we’ll explore the relationship between symptoms, emotions, thoughts, sensations, relationships, and significant life events to restore balance and well-being in your internal system.
Other Mind-Body Symptoms
Some of the conditions and symptom presentations commonly referred to this practice include:
Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)
Fibromyalgia
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)
Long COVID
Chronic Migraines
Chronic Nausea
Persistent Dizziness & Vertigo
IBS
Chronic Pelvic Pain
Interstitial Cystitis
Sensory Sensitivities
Paresthesia
TMJ
Some symptoms occur without a clear structural explanation, while others persist beyond what medical findings alone can explain. Regardless of their cause, your experience is real, and you deserve compassionate care. Click the button below for a longer list of symptoms and conditions that may resonate with you.
You’re more than your symptoms…
While symptom reduction can remain an important goal, experiential therapy also helps you understand the bigger role that symptoms have played in your life, reconnecting you to the parts of yourself the pain may have overshadowed. We can work toward the core function of your symptoms rather than putting a temporary fix over a deeper pain.
Why Work With Michael?
Specialized focus in chronic pain and chronic illness.
Trauma and neuroplastic-informed approaches.
EMDR, Brainspotting, and somatic bottom-up approaches.
Trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS) with advanced applications to chronic pain clients.
Pain Reprocessing Therapy & Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy, developed for chronic pain treatment.
Emotion-Focused Therapy trained for individuals clients.
ICEEFT-Certified as an Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapist (EFCT).
IFS for couples using Intimacy From The Inside Out (IFIO).
Offering Telehealth across Arizona!
I blend attachment-focused, experiential, and trauma-informed therapies to help clients move beyond their pain toward a life where pain and compassionate presence can coexist.
Approaches We Can Use Together:
Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
IFS for Chronic Pain and illness.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
Brainspotting.
Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT).
Somatic Interventions.
Mindfulness Practices.
Emotion-Focused Therapy for Individuals (EFT).
Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy (ICEEFT-Certified).
Intimacy From The Inside Out (IFIO) for couples therapy.
Emotion Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET).
Coherence Therapy