Therapy for Chronic Illness and Medical Trauma

Your body has been through something. So have you.

Living with a chronic condition is its own full-time job: appointments, flares, insurance, the energy accounting, the people who mean well. Add a diagnosis that came late, a procedure that went wrong, or years of not being believed, and it's a lot to carry with no one to set it down with.

That's what this work is for.

What we work with

Chronic and autoimmune conditions

The grief, anger, and identity shift that come with a body that changed the rules. Fatigue that makes ordinary life a negotiation.

Medical trauma

Emergencies, surgeries, ICU stays, childbirth, a procedure without adequate pain control, or the long slow trauma of being dismissed by doctors for years before anyone took you seriously.

Cancer, before and after treatment

The active phase, and the strange quiet after it, when everyone else thinks you're done.

Disability and mobility change

Adjusting to what your body does now, and to a world that assumed you'd never need it to be different.

Caregiver fatigue

Partners, parents, adult children. You can love someone and be exhausted by what their illness asks of you. Both are true.

How we work

• Your pace, your energy. Sessions can be shorter, online, or spaced around flares and treatment. Telehealth means a bad day doesn't cost you the session.

• Your body is in the room. Approaches that work with the nervous system, not just the narrative, including arts-based and somatic methods when they fit.

• No pathologising the illness. The condition isn't the problem we're treating. The weight of it is.

Access built in

A text-first, Deaf-led practice is built for people whose bodies don't cooperate with phone calls and waiting rooms. Written scheduling, captioned sessions, and the option to be seen from home are the default here, not an accommodation you have to ask for.

Who provides this

Sarah Shields, LLMSW specialises in chronic illness, medical trauma, grief and the life transitions that come with a diagnosis. Tell us what you're living with and we'll match you.