Chronic Illness & Diabetes Counseling
Living with a chronic illness is about more than appointments and medications. It can bring exhaustion, fear, grief for the life you planned, strain on relationships, and the constant mental load of managing your health. Counseling gives you support for the parts of illness that medical care doesn't always reach.
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How we help
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Someone who understands. Our team includes a counselor who lives with Type 1 diabetes himself and knows firsthand how daily management can wear on you.
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Practical coping skills. Using approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), you'll learn ways to manage stress, frustration and burnout and to rebuild a sense of stability and purpose.
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Support for the whole family. Illness affects everyone close to it. We also work with spouses, parents and family members.
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What we can help with
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Diabetes distress and burnout, adjusting to a new diagnosis, chronic pain and fatigue, life-limiting illness, health anxiety, depression connected to illness, and family stress around caregiving and care decisions.
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Who you will work with
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David Simons, LPC, provides diabetes and chronic illness support for individuals and family members, drawing on his own experience with Type 1 diabetes. Alyssa Sutton, LCSW, supports people facing chronic and life-limiting illness and the families who care for them. Both see clients in New Brighton and by telehealth.
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A note on matching
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Who you're matched with also depends on your insurance and whether that counselor is in network with your plan. Most of our clinicians are also trained to help with concerns beyond their listed specialties, so you may be matched with a counselor who isn't named above.
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Not sure where to start?
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Tell us a little about what's going on, and we'll match you with a counselor whose specialties, location and insurance fit you. We see clients in person in New Brighton and Greenville and by telehealth, and we're in network with most major Pennsylvania insurance plans, including Highmark, UPMC, Aetna, Optum and Medicaid. Request a session below or call 412-438-3005.
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If you're in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, don't wait for an appointment. Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), or call 911 in an emergency.