Blog
Writing about life with chronic illness, pain, and trauma
Articles for people navigating long-term health conditions, persistent pain, medical trauma, and health anxiety. Written from clinical practice and the research that informs it.
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Feeling Like a Stranger in Your Own Life: Identity and Chronic Illness
Chronic illness can make you feel like a stranger in your own life. Guest therapist Sarah Cosway on grief, identity, and rediscovering what makes you you.
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What progress looks like in therapy for chronic illness
Progress in therapy for chronic illness rarely arrives as a moment. It looks like the same life feeling different, with the condition still in it. A therapist on what to…
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Therapy for chronic illness: when recovery isn’t the goal
The work isn’t about making the condition smaller. It’s about helping you stop fighting your body, so the energy that was going into that fight becomes available for the life…
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When the struggle itself is the problem: willingness and chronic illness
The fight against a long-term condition can cost more than the symptoms do. Willingness offers a different place to put that energy, so you have more left for the life…
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Living by your values when chronic illness limits your body
Chronic illness can take your goals, but not your values. The difference between a goal and a value, why losing goals hurts, and how to keep living by what matters…
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Why acceptance isn’t resignation (when you have a chronic illness)
A clear look at what acceptance means in therapy for chronic illness: what gets misunderstood, what it actually involves, and what changes when the wrestle eases.
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Therapy for chronic pain: what it can actually do (and what it can’t)
An honest look at what psychological therapy offers when chronic pain isn’t going to resolve. What the work involves, what it doesn’t try to do, and when it might be…
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Health anxiety & chronic illness: why standard advice backfires
Standard health anxiety advice assumes the threat is imagined. When you have a chronic condition, the clinical work needs a different starting point
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Understanding Medical Trauma: Coping with PTSD
PTSD from medical trauma is common in people with chronic illness. Learn how therapy can help you access healthcare without being controlled by past experiences.
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Medical Gaslighting Is Real: How Therapy Can Help
Find a therapist who understands medical gaslighting in the UK. Learn how therapy helps rebuild self-trust after NHS dismissal and develop flexibility for better healthcare navigation with chronic conditions.
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