Therapy For Chronic Pain & Illness
Support for the emotional and everyday impact of chronic pain, illness, and changing health, available in person in Saint John and virtually across New Brunswick.
Chronic Pain Affects More Than the Body
Thoughts
✓ Worrying about symptoms, flare-ups, or the future
✓ Difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions
✓ Constantly planning how to use limited energy
✓ Questioning yourself after feeling dismissed or misunderstood
Feelings
✓ Grief for abilities, routines, or plans that have changed
✓ Frustration, anxiety, sadness, or emotional exhaustion
✓ Guilt about needing help or cancelling plans
✓ Feeling isolated from people who do not understand
Body
✓ Persistent or unpredictable pain, fatigue, or discomfort
✓ Sleep difficulties or waking without feeling rested
✓ Changes in mobility, stamina, appetite, or physical capacity
✓ Stress related to symptoms, treatment, or medication side effects
Everyday Life
✓ Difficulty keeping up with work, school, parenting, or household tasks
✓ Frequent appointments and the ongoing work of managing health
✓ Changes in relationships, intimacy, hobbies, or social activities
✓ Having to make decisions based on pain, energy, or accessibility every day
Living with chronic pain or illness can affect much more than the body. It may influence your thoughts, emotions, relationships, identity, and ability to manage everyday life.
When Chronic Pain & Illness Start Getting in the Way
Living with pain or illness often requires ongoing adjustment. Additional support may be helpful when managing symptoms, appointments, responsibilities, and other people’s expectations begins to feel overwhelming or your world starts becoming smaller.
You may notice:
- Pain, fatigue, or health concerns taking up much of your mental energy
- Avoiding activities because you fear worsening your symptoms
- Pushing beyond your limits and then needing significant time to recover
- Feeling caught between doing too much and doing too little
- Increased anxiety, low mood, irritability, grief, or hopelessness
- Difficulty sleeping or resting even when you feel exhausted
- Withdrawing from relationships, interests, or social activities
- Feeling guilty about needing accommodations, support, or a different pace
- Conflict with family, friends, employers, or healthcare providers
- Struggling with changes in identity, independence, work, or future plans
How Therapy Can Help Chronic Pain & Illness
Therapy does not mean that your pain is imagined or “all in your head.” Chronic pain and illness are real physical experiences. Therapy can help with the emotional, relational, and everyday impact of living with symptoms, uncertainty, treatment, and changing capacity.
Depending on your needs, therapy may help you:
- Cope with anxiety, grief, frustration, anger, or low mood
- Respond to flare-ups and difficult days with greater flexibility
- Adjust to changes in identity, independence, work, or relationships
- Manage fear related to symptoms, movement, medical appointments, or the future
- Process injury, medical trauma, or distressing healthcare experiences
- Communicate your needs and advocate for appropriate support
- Set boundaries and manage guilt about rest, accommodations, or asking for help
- Develop realistic strategies for pacing, stress, sleep, and emotional regulation
- Reconnect with meaningful activities, relationships, and personal values
- Build a more compassionate relationship with your body and changing capacity
Therapy does not replace medical care or promise to eliminate pain. It can work alongside your healthcare supports to help you live with greater understanding, choice, and quality of life.
Therapy Approaches That May Be Helpful
Your therapist will tailor their approach to your experiences, goals, and the factors affecting your health. Therapy may focus on coping with the impact of pain, processing trauma, increasing flexibility, or reconnecting with what matters to you.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT can help you respond more flexibly to difficult thoughts and emotions, clarify what matters to you, and make room for meaningful experiences even when pain or limitations remain.
EMDR may be helpful when pain or illness is connected to trauma, injury, frightening medical experiences, or distressing memories that continue to feel emotionally present.
IFS can help you understand the parts of yourself carrying fear, grief, anger, pressure, or exhaustion and develop a more compassionate relationship with those responses.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy
ART may be used to address traumatic or distressing memories associated with injury, illness, medical procedures, or significant changes in health.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pain and physical symptoms are real, regardless of whether their cause is clearly understood. Physical health, the nervous system, sleep, stress, emotions, and life circumstances can all influence how pain is experienced. Anxiety, trauma, low mood, or emotional distress may intensify pain or make it harder to manage – just as living with ongoing pain can affect mental health. Therapy does not try to convince you that your symptoms are imagined. It addresses the emotional and psychological parts of the pain experience while recognizing that they are only one part of the whole picture.
Therapy cannot promise to eliminate pain or treat an underlying medical condition. It may help reduce distress, improve coping, address trauma, and support meaningful activity and quality of life alongside appropriate medical care.
No. You can seek therapy whether you have a confirmed diagnosis, are undergoing testing, or are still trying to understand your symptoms. A physician’s referral is not required to book counselling with Rising Tides.
Therapy may support people living with persistent pain, migraine, autoimmune conditions, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, long COVID, cancer, mobility changes, or other ongoing health concerns. The focus is on your experience and needs rather than a particular diagnosis.
Yes. Feeling dismissed or disbelieved can affect self-trust and make healthcare interactions increasingly stressful. Therapy can help you process these experiences, clarify your needs, and build confidence in advocating for yourself.
Yes. Virtual therapy is available to clients located throughout New Brunswick and may be particularly helpful when pain, fatigue, mobility, transportation, or unpredictable symptoms make attending in person difficult.
Meet Some of Our Therapists Who Support Clients With Chronic Pain & Illness
Alex Hitchcock, LTC-C
Counselling Therapist
Alex uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help clients respond more flexibly to difficult thoughts and emotions, reconnect with what matters to them, and build a meaningful life alongside pain, illness, or changing capacity. His approach emphasizes realistic goals rather than pressure to simply “push through.”
Rachel Milne, MSW
Registered Social Worker
Rachel supports clients navigating the emotional effects of pain, illness, trauma, and significant changes in health or ability. She can incorporate EMDR when distressing experiences, injuries, or medical events continue to affect a client’s sense of safety and well-being.
Caitlin Iles, LCT-C
Counselling Therapist
Caitlin has a particular interest in chronic illness, mind-body wellness, mindfulness, and nutrition for mental health. Drawing from CBT and other integrative approaches, she helps clients understand the connections between physical and emotional well-being and develop strategies that fit their capacity and everyday lives.
Support for the Whole Experience of Pain
Chronic pain and illness can affect every part of life, but you do not have to navigate those changes alone. We can connect you with a therapist who understands the relationship between physical and emotional well-being and can help you build a life that feels more manageable and meaningful.