In-person in Duluth, GA & online throughout the US
Therapy For Chronic Illness In Duluth, GA
You are more than your diagnosis.
Do you feel like your life is controlled by your chronic illness?
Your life has been turned upside down by your diagnosis, and it feels like so much has been taken away from you. You're worrying about what it means for you in the long term, and you find yourself paralyzed with anxiety every time you have a flare-up.
You're stressed out by everything you have to do to take care of yourself, and tired of constantly having to advocate for yourself with doctors who invalidate your experience. Having to go through difficult, painful procedures again and again has left you with medical trauma.
Chronic illness can affect every part of your life, causing you to:
Struggle to keep up with work, home, and school obligations, knowing it might trigger a flare-up
Interact with the medical establishment on a regular basis and feel like a professional patient
Lose friends and acquaintances because of your inability to show up the way you want to in relationships
Feel isolated and alone because the people around you don't truly understand what you are going through
Not want to ask for help from your spouse or partner even when it's necessary because you feel like an endless pit of need
Support that actually takes you seriously
Living with a chronic illness turns your whole world upside down. Therapy can help you start to feel more like yourself again. You can feel less overwhelmed by the emotional weight of your diagnosis, more confident in speaking up for yourself, and less alone in dealing with your experience. You don't have to navigate this perfectly or by yourself. Together, we'll process both the practical and emotional sides of living with chronic illness, while you receive active feedback and practical tools tailored to your specific situation.
In therapy you’ll learn to:
-
Finally getting an accurate diagnosis to explain your symptoms can be both a relief and can feel extremely overwhelming. It may answer some questions, but open up a whole bunch of other ones. Therapy will help you adjust to your diagnosis and help you learn to advocate for yourself within the medical system when it comes to receiving treatment.
-
Although flare-ups can occur out of the blue, it has been shown that for many illnesses, stress can play a role in the frequency and severity of flare-ups. In therapy, we will work on stress management and relaxation techniques. This will decrease the frequency of your flare-ups and make them less severe when they do occur.
-
One of the hardest adjustments after being diagnosed with a chronic illness is getting used to having to ask for help from other people. If you were a pretty independent person before, this is particularly difficult. In therapy, we will work on strategies for asking for help without feeling guilty or as if you are burden on others, and how to accept help gracefully.
Therapy Approaches
-
My approach is integrative, which means I draw from several types of therapy and choose what fits for you:
Relational therapy looks at the patterns that show up in your relationships, including the one between us, and helps you change them. For many people with chronic illness, that means practicing how to ask for help, speak up with doctors, and stop feeling like a burden.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) helps you see how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors feed each other, and break the cycles that keep you stuck. That might be the worry about what your diagnosis means for the future, or the push-through-then-crash pattern that can set off a flare-up.
DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) builds practical skills for handling intense emotions, stress, and difficult conversations. These skills help in the moments that feel overwhelming, like a flare-up, a painful procedure, or an appointment where you're not being heard.
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) helps you make room for hard feelings while still moving toward what matters to you. With a condition that doesn't go away, it can help you grieve what you've lost while building a life that still feels like yours, within the limits of your energy and symptoms.
As we work together, I'll keep checking in about what's working for you and adjust, so your therapy is tailored to you, including your symptoms, your energy, and what's happening with your health that week. I also pay close attention to the relationship between us, since it's one of the strongest tools we have for creating change. For people who have often felt dismissed, having a space where you're believed can be part of the change itself.
-
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a way of processing traumatic or difficult memories so they feel less distressing. While you focus on a memory, we use bilateral stimulation to help your brain work through it. In person, that means handheld tappers that gently alternate between your hands. Online, we use guided eye movements. I use EMDR to help clients process medical trauma, like painful procedures or frightening medical experiences, as well as other kinds of trauma, when it's a good fit for you.
Areas of Expertise
Gastroparesis/Crohn’s/GI Distress
Chronic Migraines
And more…
A digestive system you can’t predict can take over your whole life. I've worked with many clients who have gastroparesis, Crohn's disease, and other GI conditions, and I understand how disruptive those conditions are. Plans fall through, meals turn into a calculation, and the bathroom is never far from your mind.
You don't have to worry about any of that in our sessions, whether we meet in person or online. Vomiting or needing to run to the bathroom mid-session doesn't faze me, and you never need to apologize.
In our work together, I help you learn to manage the anxiety that builds around your symptoms, like dreading a flare-up in public or worrying about what's safe to eat, and I help you process the medical trauma that so often comes with these conditions.
I also know how grueling the road to a diagnosis can be. For conditions like these, it can take months or even years to get the right answer, and I'm glad to work with you whether you're still searching or have been managing for a long time.
Lupus
I've worked with many people living with chronic migraines, whose lives have been turned upside down by migraines that strike more days than not or last for days at a time.
I live with migraines myself, so I understand firsthand how hard it can be to find the right treatment and how frustrating the side effects of different medications can be.
In our work together, I help you learn pain management strategies, navigate the medical system and advocate for yourself within it, and manage the anxiety and depression that so often come with chronic pain.
And if you wake up with a migraine on the day of your session, we can always switch to telehealth if that would be helpful.
Lupus can mean persistent joint and muscle pain, fatigue, and cognitive symptoms that make even simple tasks feel harder than they should. I’ve worked with many people living with lupus, and I know how much it asks of the people who live with it.
Because so much of lupus is invisible, it can be hard to feel believed, by doctors, by the people around you, and sometimes by yourself on the days you push through. And with flares you can't predict, it's hard to make plans or trust your own energy.
In our work together, we focus on what's particular to living with lupus: pacing your energy around symptoms that shift, finding ways to keep going at work and in relationships when fatigue and brain fog get in the way, and feeling understood on the days when no one can see what you're dealing with.
Don't see your condition above? That doesn't mean I haven't worked with it. Over the last 20 years, I’ve worked with too many types of chronic illness to list, including various types of cancer, other autoimmune conditions, diabetes, POTS, MCAS, thyroid disorders, and hormonal imbalances. If you’re wondering whether I’m familiar with your condition, just reach out and ask.
Here’s what’s possible for you:
Feel more in control of your day-to-day life
Trust your own experience and advocate for yourself
Process the grief of your diagnosis
Reach out to others when help is needed without doubting yourself or feeling guilty
Decrease stress-induced flare-ups
Your symptoms are real. So is the support.
Common questions about chronic illness therapy
-
Not at all. I often work with people who are struggling to get a diagnosis and have been living with unexplained or hard-to-diagnose symptoms for a long time. You don't need an official diagnosis to start therapy.
-
What you are physically experiencing is definitely real and is not just all in your head. However, having to deal with a chronic illness can often lead to other problems such as anxiety and depression. Therapy can help you cope with the emotional difficulties that having a chronic illness can cause. Participating in therapy can also reduce the chances that emotional problems will cause your physical symptoms to get worse.
-
Flexibility is important when working with chronic illness, and I'll adjust sessions based on what you're experiencing that day. For example, if you're too exhausted to make it to the office, we can switch to a virtual session instead.
-
Yes. Medical trauma often accompanies chronic illness, and I have experience helping clients process it—including using EMDR, when appropriate, to work through traumatic medical experiences. I also help clients learn how to cope with doctors who don't believe their symptoms, both by processing those difficult experiences and by building the skills to become a stronger self-advocate.
-
Absolutely. I often help clients process the grief that comes with a chronic illness diagnosis, along with the losses that can come with it. Therapy can be a valuable space to work through those feelings.
-
Yes, I can consult with members of your care team—physicians, dietitians, physical therapists, and others—to make sure we're addressing all the important aspects of your care.
-
I have personal experience living with chronic illness myself, including chronic migraines, so I understand firsthand how much illness can affect your daily life, relationships, plans, and sense of well-being. I know what it's like to have an illness that doesn't simply go away and to have to navigate the uncertainty and limitations that can come with it.
At the same time, I bring my professional experience as a psychologist to help you work through the emotional challenges that can accompany chronic illness. My goal is to help you cope with the stress, anxiety, grief, frustration, and changes that illness can bring while finding ways to live a meaningful life alongside your health challenges.
Begin therapy for chronic illness in Duluth, GA
You don’t have to keep dealing with your chronic illness on your own. Therapy can provide you with support and coping skills to deal with the effects of your illness. As a chronic illness therapist, I specialize in helping individuals with chronic illness to live their best lives. To start your therapy journey, follow these simple steps:
Click below
Click the Schedule Free Consultation button below.
01
book consultation
Book a free, 15 minute video consultation with me to talk more about what you are looking for from therapy and to ask me any questions you have for me about the process.
02
schedule your session
Schedule your first therapy session to start learning how you can reduce flare ups and improve your outlook on your situation.
03
Other services available from Ginny Kington, Psy.D.
Therapy for chronic illness isn’t the only mental health service I provide. Oftentimes, if you are struggling with a chronic illness, it is going to bring on feelings of anxiety or lead to burnout at work. Therapeutic services are available in both of these areas, as well as in the area of people pleasing. I am able to provide these services in my office in Duluth, Georgia or online in the following states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington DC, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
More chronic illness related topics
