Chronic Illness Counseling - Coalescence Health

When chronic illness takes more than a physical toll

Living with a chronic illness is not only a medical experience. It reshapes how you move through your day, what you say yes to, what you quietly let go of. You rearrange your schedule around symptoms. You smile through the questions from people who mean well but cannot quite understand. You have learned to explain your condition clearly and calmly to provider after provider, while privately carrying something that has no clean clinical name.

Many people with chronic illness describe a grief that builds slowly. Not grief in the dramatic sense, but the accumulating loss of the life you expected. The plans you scaled back. The person you were before. The version of yourself you are still trying to become despite everything.

You may have tried to address this on your own. You may have tried talk therapy before and found it helped up to a point, but never quite reached the deeper place where your body holds the experience of being ill. That gap is real, and it is what chronic illness counseling is specifically designed to address.

What is chronic illness counseling?

Chronic illness counseling is a specialized form of therapy for people navigating the psychological and emotional dimensions of living with a long-term health condition. It is different from general counseling because it starts where your medical care ends: with how illness is affecting your identity, your relationships, your sense of possibility, and your relationship with your own body.

Chronic illness counseling helps with conditions including autoimmune disease, chronic pain, neurological conditions, cardiac conditions, cancer, diabetes, and any other long-term diagnosis that has changed the shape of your daily life. It is appropriate whether you were diagnosed recently or have been managing your condition for years.

The goal is not to fix your illness. It is to help you live more fully, with more agency and less suffering, inside the reality you are actually in.

How the Coalescence Health team approaches chronic illness counseling

Coalescence Health was founded by Sarai Trujillo, MA, LPC, IMH-E, PMH-C, an EMDR specialist recognized as an expert in the field who provides consultation to other clinicians. Her approach is rooted in a belief that healing is not only cognitive. EMDR works at the neurological level where your body has stored the experience of being ill, and Sarai uses both talk therapy and EMDR to work with you at both levels, so that healing is not only something you understand but something you actually feel in your body.

Hanna Bingham, MA, LPCC, CTP brings a trauma-informed approach to her counseling work, with a belief that the stories we carry have the power to heal.

Ellen Henderson, MS, LPCC holds her clinical work with gentleness and curiosity, offering a grounded presence for people navigating the long and often unpredictable terrain of chronic illness.

Talmage Trujillo, MA brings his background in trauma-informed care, crisis intervention, and non-violent communication to his work with individuals and couples. He works under supervision and shares the same whole-person philosophy that defines care across the Coalescence Health team.

Colorado Medicaid is accepted for counseling services. In-person sessions are available in Salida and virtual therapy is available to anyone in Colorado.

What to expect

Your first session:

You share what you are carrying. our team listens without rushing you toward a solution. Together you establish what you want from counseling and what has or has not worked for you before.

Your counseling plan

Depending on your needs, our team will integrate talk therapy, EMDR, or both. The approach is built around your experience of illness, not a generic protocol for your diagnosis.

Ongoing support

Progress in chronic illness counseling often looks like reduced emotional reactivity, more flexibility in how you relate to your symptoms, and a returning sense of who you are beyond your condition.

What becomes possible

Living in your body with less fear: Many people with chronic illness develop an anxious relationship with their own physical experience. EMDR and talk therapy can help shift that relationship so your body feels less like a source of threat and more like a place you can inhabit again.

Processing the grief that has no clean name: The loss of the life you expected is real. Counseling gives you a space to grieve it properly, not minimize it or rush through it, so it stops weighing on everything else.

Getting back to the parts of life that matter: Sessions are structured around what you want to return to, not only what you are suffering from. Whether that is relationships, work, creative life, or simply more ease in your day, that is the horizon our team works toward with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to explain my medical diagnosis in detail before we start?

No. our team does not need a full medical briefing to begin counseling. She is working with your emotional and psychological experience of illness, which you are the expert on. You guide the conversation at whatever level of medical detail feels right to you.

What is EMDR and how does it help with chronic illness?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is an evidence-based therapy that works at the neurological level, helping your brain and body process experiences that have become stuck. For people with chronic illness, EMDR can help process the grief, fear, and trauma responses that accumulate over time, and that talk therapy alone sometimes does not fully reach.

Is virtual therapy available if I live outside Salida?

Yes. Coalescence Health offers virtual therapy across Colorado. This is especially relevant for people in rural or frontier communities where in-person mental health access is limited, and for those whose symptoms make travel difficult on some days.