Health Psychology
Health Psychology
The connection between the mind and the body is not a metaphor. It's physiological. Stress affects immune function and inflammation. Chronic pain changes mood and cognition. Anxiety can mimic and worsen physical symptoms. Depression reduces energy, motivation, and the capacity to follow through on the health behaviors that would help. Our mind and body are not separate systems, and treating them that way leaves a significant gap in care.
Health psychology sits at that intersection. It's a specialty focused on the reciprocal relationship of how psychological factors influence physical health and how physical health shapes mental well-being. If you're managing a chronic illness, navigating a new diagnosis, struggling to make lasting behavior change, or finding that the emotional weight of health challenges is becoming as hard to carry as the physical symptoms themselves, this work is for you.
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I work with clients across a range of health-related challenges. Some are managing long-term chronic conditions like diabetes, autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, or heart disease, and need support coping with the psychological demands of living with illness. Some have received a new diagnosis and are struggling to adjust. Some are dealing with health anxiety, where worry about their health has become its own source of suffering. And some are trying to make meaningful lifestyle changes, whether around exercise, sleep, nutrition, or stress, and finding that knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things.
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Coping with a diagnosis involves more than following a treatment plan. It involves grief, adjustment, fear, and a shift in how you see yourself and your future. We work on processing that experience, building realistic acceptance, and developing the psychological tools to live as fully as possible within your current reality.
Pain management often has a significant psychological component. The way we think about pain, the emotions that surround it, and the behaviors that develop in response to it all influence how pain is experienced. Evidence-based approaches including ACT have strong support for improving quality of life and functioning in people with chronic pain.
Health behavior change is hard. If it were easy, everyone would exercise regularly, sleep enough, and manage stress effectively. We look at what's actually getting in the way of the changes you want to make, including the psychological barriers, the unhelpful patterns, and the history that makes certain habits feel so difficult to shift. Then we build a realistic, sustainable plan.
Treatment adherence, meaning actually following through on the medical care you've been prescribed, often involves navigating anxiety, denial, side effects, or simply the complexity of managing health within the rest of your life. We address the psychological factors that make sticking with a plan difficult and build systems that make it more sustainable.
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Clients working on health psychology goals often describe feeling more in control of their experience even when their physical circumstances haven't changed. They develop a clearer sense of what is in and out of their control, more effective ways of coping with what's hard, and greater ability to maintain the health behaviors that support their wellbeing. The physical and mental start working together instead of against each other.