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/