Disability Justice Therapy
A diagnosis of a chronic condition or life-threatening disease, or any kind of change in ability, carries heavy emotional and psychological effects. Disability shapes your life and changes your life. Many people live with chronic illnesses, and yet so much is unknown about our health. Just like supportive and affirming medical care, disability-affirming psychotherapy can be hard to find. In therapy, we can attend to grief, identity loss, and shifts in worldview as well as more practical aspects of adjusting to a new way of living.
As an invisibly disabled therapist with chronic illness, I know how hard it can be to adapt to living in a bodymind you can't rely on. There are so many difficulties we face:
“If disabled people were truly heard, an explosion of knowledge of the human body and psyche would take place. ”
I wouldn’t claim to be able to fix your pain or illness in therapy (because it’s in your body, not your head), but I can help you with the distress it causes. Existential therapy, with its focus on fear of death and the fundamental anxieties of life, is uniquely suited to guide us through what can feel like impossible situations.
Depression and anxiety are common responses to illness. There are ways to address these secondary responses so that less of your energy goes to those experiences, leaving more for you to care for yourself. We can work together on creating a daily structure that gives you the necessary time to rest and treat your symptoms.
I work with you on supporting identity changes as you figure out what no longer fits and what new aspects you want or need to integrate into your sense of self. Some of these feel like a choice, and some may not.
Coping with disability involves ongoing loss and grief. We will spend time processing these losses. As a disability-aware therapist, I know that the loss and grief that come with medical issues can be different than what might come with a death.
This type of ambiguous loss is not always well understood. As Pauline Boss, the psychologist who coined the term, said "It's not easy, but an untenable situation can be maintained indefinitely. I can stand not-knowing." Having navigated this type of loss and grief myself, I know it is possible to learn how to accommodate your limitations, to live in that space of not-knowing, as well as to find joy in the life you have now.
It is important to me to bring a disability justice approach into therapy. We have been conditioned to believe our worth is tied to our productivity, so when we can no longer produce, we often struggle with feelings of worthlessness. Disability justice calls on us to value our nonconforming bodies and minds, to reject the capitalist notion that our worth is defined by our productivity, to acknowledge that disability is an intersectional issue, and to recognize that we are interdependent—we all, disabled and not, need each other to survive and thrive.
I am also a trauma therapist. Medical trauma is, unfortunately, often a result of living with a disability, and trauma therapy can help ease some of this pain.
Accessing care/support for daily tasks
Depression and anxiety
Lack of medical support and misdiagnosis
Medical trauma
Friends and family who don’t understand
Ambiguous loss and grief
Existential questions about life
Identity changes
“Disability is articulated as a struggle, an unnecessary burden that one must overcome to the soundtrack of a string crescendo. But disabled lives are multi-faceted – brimming with personality, pride, ambition, love, empathy, and wit.”
– Sinead Burke
Disability Therapy Resources
How to Get On: A self-advocacy guide for anyone who is homebound or bedbound in the US
After the Diagnosis: From Crisis to Personal Renewal for Patients With Chronic Illness
Disability Visibility Project’s books