Psychotherapy for Chronic Medical Conditions

People generally understand why you would get therapy for depression and anxiety as psychotherapy is typically thought of for helping with problematic emotions and situations.  Psychotherapy for chronic medical conditions, on the other hand, is not always as easily understood.  Clinical health psychology is a subspecialty of clinical psychology which focuses on helping people manage the thoughts, behaviors, and feelings associated with health-related issues, including chronic medical conditions.  Psychotherapy can be helpful for a wide variety of chronic medical conditions including insomnia, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic pain.

Why would you engage in therapy for chronic medical conditions?

Behaviors play a large role in managing most chronic medical conditions.  If you want to manage diabetes, it can involve checking your blood sugar, taking medication consistently, counting carbohydrates, making dietary changes, and exercising.  If you live with chronic pain, modifying and pacing activities to manage a different ability level can be challenging.  If you live with heart disease, you may be instructed to watch your salt intake, make dietary changes, exercise, and manage stress levels.  If you have insomnia, you change your sleep patterns and your habits around sleep.

Thoughts also play a role in the management of chronic medical conditions.  We know how we think about things and interpret situations changes our experiences.  If we view a chronic medical condition as “just another thing I need to worry about” or making dietary changes as “too hard” or diabetes as “controlling my life” it can have a big impact on our feelings regarding the medical condition.  Quite a few people with diabetes view their glucometer as the “bad news machine” due to their blood sugar levels being higher than recommended.

The pressure of making behavior changes to manage chronic medical conditions along with the negative thoughts that can come along with changes can make managing a medical condition stressful and overwhelming.  Trying to manage all these aspects of health alone can also lead to people feeling “burned out” with their chronic medical condition which can lead to a decrease in behaviors needed to manage the chronic medical condition and more negative thoughts about the chronic medical condition.

What does therapy for chronic medical conditions look like?

Psychotherapy for chronic medical conditions aims to help with the aspects mentioned above.  Therapy focuses on making small, consistent behavior changes to improve management of a chronic medical condition as well as helping engage in problem-solving for the barriers that arise in engaging in these behaviors.  For example, setting goals around how many times per day to check blood sugar levels and identifying the easiest times per day to remember to check blood sugar levels.

Psychotherapy can help with changing negative thinking into more realistic thinking.  The glucometer is no longer thought of as a “bad news machine” but instead as a tool that provides information that allows changes to be made.  Therapy helps to begin focusing on the things a person CAN do while living with a chronic medical condition instead of the things they CAN’T do anymore.

Goals of therapy for chronic medical conditions

The primary goals I have in working with people who have chronic medical conditions are:

• Helping figure out how managing a chronic medical condition can fit into your life rather than changing your life to fit the chronic medical condition.
• Improving quality of life while living with a chronic medical condition.
• Strategies to manage the feeling of being “burned out”.

Feel free to contact us at 551-1840, or leave a comment below, if you have any questions about receiving psychotherapy for a chronic medical condition.