The Modern Therapist's Survival Guide with Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy

Managing Chronic Pain and Illness

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An interview with Daniela Paolone, LMFT about how she treats clients with chronic pain and illnesses while navigating her own diagnosis. Curt and Katie talked with Daniela about how typical therapy doesn’t work for these clients, providing practical strategies for treatment and therapist self-care.


Interview with Daniela Paolone, LMFT

Daniela Paolone is a Marriage and Family Therapist who is licensed in California and Wyoming and offers support to those impacted by anxiety, depression, life transitions, chronic pain, chronic illness, and medical trauma. She provides online and in-person counseling to California residents and offers online counseling to Wyoming residents. 

As a therapist with chronic health conditions, she utilizes her personal experiences and professional training in her counseling work. Daniela’s integrative approach helps her clients learn new ways of coping so that they can live more fulfilling lives and feel empowered as they move through life challenges, such as medical illness and chronic pain.  

Daniela also offers workshops and consultation support for mental health professionals. She also provides community presentations focused on pain management, stress management, sleep solutions and more. If you want to learn about where she is presenting next, you can sign up for her newsletter here. When you sign up, you will also receive a free guided meditation as thank you gift. 

 

In this episode we talk about:

  • Why Daniela decided that she wanted to go into working with chronic pain and illness as her area of specialty
  • What was missing in the treatment she had seen for chronic pain and illness sufferers
  • The need for structure and for understanding
  • How she has decided how to disclose about her own diagnosis, medical procedures, etc. based on relevance and relatability
  • The specific challenges of being a younger person who has chronic illness
  • Modeling needs and self-care to clients
  • Themes of isolation and not being understood
  • Being a Spoon-y
  • What therapists often get wrong when working with chronic pain sufferers
  • The need to do a good job of assessing functioning, what they can do in a typical day
  • Understanding the neuroscience of pain and how it impacts their ability to do deeper, insight-oriented work
  • The conversation about attendance, options when someone (client or therapist) are having a flare-up (like online services)
  • The need for a more flexible cancellation policy
  • Understanding their schedule of doctor’s appointments
  • The idea of consulting with the other medical professionals on their team
  • The work in session around navigating doctors, their illness
  • The need for a case management hat at times
  • Putting a focus on building skills and support
  • Looking at scope of practice when you have had your own medical journey and have knowledge.
  • How to share information through a psychoeducational lens

    •  

    Relevant Resources:

    We’ve pulled together any resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links:

    Daniela’s website: www.westlakevillage-counseling.com

    Spoon Theory: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

    7 Psychological Stages of Chronic Pain (and it also applies to chronic illness)  

    Functional Medicine defined: https://drhyman.com/about-2/about-functional-medicine/

    Dr. Datis Kharrazian: https://drknews.com/about-dr-datis-kharrazian/

     

    The Modern Therapists Group on Facebook

    Therapy Reimagined 2019

     

    Credits:

    Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/

    Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/

     

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    The Modern Therapist's Survival Guide with Curt Widhalm and Katie VernoyBy Curt Widhalm, LMFT and Katie Vernoy, LMFT
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