Statement of Principles

Statement of Principles

Chronic Living Therapy features therapists who understand that patients with long term health problems face multiple life changes and difficulties which therapy can help with. These may include:

• a long journey from first symptoms to diagnosis
• loneliness and isolation
• loss of sense of self
• loss of career, family and other plans
• difficulties finding meaning in life
• dealing with chronic pain, cognitive dysfunction (often called “brain fog”), and many other symptoms
• difficulties in asking for and accepting help from others

In addition to these basic but major problems, many people with long term health conditions face extra hurdles just being believed – by doctors, therapists, friends and family, and society in general, fuelled by a sceptical (and sometimes hostile) media.

The therapists on this site understand that the ‘psychologisation’ (acting as though a physical/biomedical illness is in fact a mental/psychological illness) of many long term health conditions such as ME/CFS, POTS, MCAS and others have caused further problems. These may include:

• difficulties trusting health care professionals, including counsellors and therapists
• PTSD and similar long term effects from having been disbelieved and treated as a ‘malingerer’
• a feeling that they have no ‘right’ to grieve lost opportunities or missed life choices because of a deep seated suspicion they are ‘making or keeping themselves ill’
• guilt about asking for or needing help from those around them

The therapists on this site are sceptical about glib but widespread generalisations that physical health conditions must have an underlying traumatic cause.

We refute the suggestion that changes to mindset can cause a physical/biomedical condition to disappear or improve.

We understand that these attitudes can be extremely frustrating and undermining to people with a primarily physical medical condition, particularly when they need or want to access help for the knock on emotional impacts of being ill.

Whilst not every therapist on this site will be a good match for every person with a long term health condition we want to help and not to undermine you further than you already have been undermined.

Therapists featured here realise that missed appointments, shortened sessions, or inattention during a session, do not necessarily represent hostility towards the therapist of the therapeutic process, but is part of living with an energy limiting condition. Many will have cancellation and other policies that reflect this understanding.

As therapists featured on this website we stand ready to help you find your way through your life with a long term health problem.