Therapy for Disability, Chronic Illness, and Medical Trauma in GA, MD, and DC
Disability and Chronic Illness
Living with disability or chronic illness means more than simply being included in existing spaces. Therapy can help you develop a more trusting relationship with your body, reduce the impact of chronic stress on your nervous system, strengthen self-advocacy, and move from surviving each day to living with greater flexibility, connection, and self-compassion.
Using Somatic Experiencing®, nervous system-informed interventions, and a disability-affirming framework, our work in therapy focuses on helping your body experience greater safety by increasing your capacity to respond to life's challenges without remaining in a constant state of overwhelm.
Many clients notice improvements in emotional regulation, reduced anxiety around symptoms or accessibility barriers, increased confidence in communicating their needs, and a greater ability to distinguish between what belongs to their condition and what has been created by chronic stress, masking, or ableism.
Our approach is grounded in the social model of disability, which recognizes that much of the difficulty disabled people experience is created by inaccessible environments, systemic barriers, and cultural attitudes, not disability itself. Therapy is about helping you reclaim energy, choice, and self-trust while building a life that supports your body, mind, and way of moving through the world.
Healing from Medical Trauma
Recovering from medical trauma often requires adapting to uncertainty, grief, pain, and repeated interactions with healthcare systems. For many people, those experiences can create or exacerbate mental health symptoms, especially when symptoms have been dismissed, diagnoses delayed, or treatments have felt invasive or disempowering.
Through a nervous system-centered approach, therapy can help you experience less hypervigilance around medical appointments, greater resilience during symptom flares, and an increased sense of safety in your body, even when symptoms persist. We e work to restore your nervous system's capacity for regulation so that you can experience less fear, frustration, and exhaustion.
Together, we gently process the emotional impact of healthcare experiences while building practical tools for navigating uncertainty, advocating for yourself with providers, honoring your body's limits without shame, and reconnecting with activities, relationships, and values that matter most. Healing may look like expanding your capacity to experience moments of ease, connection, agency, and joy.
A Different Kind of Care
Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC)
The CRC credential reflects specialized training in disability, accomodations, rehabilitation, and ethical practice, providing evidence-based, person-centered support.
Extensive Case Management Experience
I have extensive experience helping clients navigate housing resources, disability-related benefits, and clinical documentation such as ESA letters, ensuring they receive practical support that addresses both mental health and everyday needs
Disability Justice Orientation
Centering a disability justice approach, I recognize the importance of equity, accessibility, interdependence. This framework demands moving beyond inclusion and accomodation to belonging, participation, and leadership.