Coping With Chronic Illness

What Is Health Psychology

Behavioral health, or health psychology, refers to the management and therapy of patients who need to learn new skills or change behaviors in order to maximize their health and effectiveness. Many people have chronic medical illnesses or health related problems that can cause or be intensified by stress or lifestyle patterns.

Therapy includes stress management, physical and mental relaxation techniques, cognitive changes (attitudes & thought patterns), and habit change. Counseling around areas of stress, such as work or family stress, and problem solving skills are part of our cognitive behavioral approach.

Clients are taught stress and pain reduction strategies using several methods including the use of psychophysiological biofeedback systems. For example, the interactive program, HeartMath, is a behavioral feedback system that measures heart rate variability, which has differing patterns when a person is in a stressed state or a relaxed state. By learning to regulate and control heart rate variability, clients can take control of the physiological response they feel when under stressful conditions.

Another system uses EEG biofeedback, also known as neurofeedback, and enables the patient to "see" and "hear" the physiological aspects of stress and pain on their body and to use these cues to learn to reduce these effects. Neurofeedback is used for a variety of conditions that appear to be associated with irregular brain activity, including sleep disorders, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, learning disorders and attention deficit disorders.

What Our Programs Offer

Cardiac Behavior Therapy (CBT) offers a program to address the treatment of patients who need to learn new skills or change behaviors in order to maximize their cardiac and cardiovascular functioning. CBT includes teaching breathing and relaxation techniques, mental relaxation techniques such as mental focusing, imagery and hypnotherapy, and cognitive techniques for managing stress through changes of attitudes and thought patterns.

Coping with Chronic Pain offers a multimodal treatment program that helps patients to realize the importance of the mind-body connection, learn how personal problems can lessen ability to cope, and what to do to strengthen personal self confidence and discover adaptive coping strategies. Like stress, chronic pain can cause one to tense or brace muscles and this can excerbate or worsen the pain. We work to help clients break out of this cycle of chronic pain and learn enhanced, adaptive coping strategies.

Becoming a Non-Smoker offers a program that is tailored to meet the needs of the individual client. Each person smokes for a different reason and gets different "benefits" from smoking. We assess each individual's past smoking and other health related history and provide an analysis of the client's current smoking and what purpose the behavior serves. The program addresses the effects of smoking on the body and mind and the side effects of quitting (withdrawal) and teaches skills to manage the urge to smoke and withdrawal symptoms, including physiological, behavioral, and psychological effects. It also addresses managing social aspects of quitting, such as in relationships and work places, and ways to stay smoke free and prevent relapse.

Weight Management offers a program to help to develop a treatment plan that is tailored to the individual client's unique metabolic, medical and social needs and lifestyle. Assessment of current patterns is used to develop behavioral changes to enhance weight management. The goal is to achieve emotional well being and long term success in weight management.

Coping with Women's Problems offers a multimodal treatment program to address situations women face, which are unique to their gender. Life changes ranging from divorce to personal challenges involving reproductive issues, or illnesses such as fibromyaligia, create a need for a personalized program to support the individual's own strengths and enhance coping strategies. This program contains elements of other programs with a focus on the stressors unique to women.