Living with Chronic Pain: A Path to Resilience and Fulfillment

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for Chronic Pain

I understand the toll that chronic pain can take on every aspect of your life. For many, the struggle to manage pain can lead to frustration, fear, and isolation. But pain doesn’t have to dictate the quality of your life. My online therapy sessions, grounded in the powerful methods of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), are designed to help you move beyond the pain and live a more fulfilling life.

ACT: A New Approach to Managing Chronic Pain

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers a refreshing and transformative approach to chronic pain. Unlike traditional methods that focus solely on reducing pain, ACT encourages you to shift your mindset, allowing you to live a meaningful life even with persistent discomfort. I use ACT to help you accept your pain, defuse harmful thought patterns, and focus on what truly matters—your values, relationships, and personal growth.

Why Choose ACT for Chronic Pain?

Pain is a part of life, but suffering doesn’t have to be. ACT helps you accept that pain is inevitable while teaching you how to stop struggling against it. By developing psychological flexibility, you can learn to live fully in the present moment without being controlled by negative thoughts or emotions. Together, we’ll work through the key components of ACT — the same framework I call The Six Pillars of Making a Life That Works:

  • Contacting the Present Moment (Be Here Now): Staying grounded and focused on the present, rather than being consumed by past or future worries.
  • Defusion (Watch Your Thinking): Learning to see your thoughts as thoughts — mental events you can observe, rather than commands you must obey or facts you must argue with.
  • Acceptance (Open Up): Making room for pain instead of exhausting yourself avoiding it.
  • Self-as-Context (Balancing Self-Identity): Connecting with the you that exists beyond your pain and negative emotions.
  • Values (Know What Matters): Identifying what truly matters in your life.
  • Committed Action (Do What It Takes): Taking steps toward your valued goals, even when pain is present.

How ACT Can Transform Your Life

My goal is to help you break free from the cycle of pain avoidance. When we focus solely on pain relief, we often sacrifice activities and relationships that give our lives meaning. ACT helps you reclaim those parts of your life by shifting the focus from reducing pain to living well with it.

For instance, many people with chronic pain stop engaging in activities they love, like exercising, socializing, or spending time with family, out of fear of triggering pain. ACT encourages you to reconnect with these meaningful activities, allowing you to live a richer life despite the pain.

A Personalized Approach to Pain Management

I tailor ACT interventions to your unique needs. No two experiences of pain are alike, and we’ll work together to identify your personal values and goals. Whether you want to focus on improving relationships, increasing physical activity, or rediscovering hobbies, ACT can help you move forward in a way that aligns with your core values.

Through ACT, you’ll develop the tools to:

  • Accept your pain without letting it control your life.
  • Break free from harmful thought patterns that fuel your suffering.
  • Stay present and engaged in life, no matter what challenges arise.
  • Take committed actions that lead to personal growth and fulfillment.

Therapy from the Comfort of Home

All of my sessions are online, which makes access easier when chronic pain makes travel difficult — no commute, no waiting room, no sitting in an uncomfortable chair. You get compassionate, evidence-based care rooted in ACT, from wherever you’re most comfortable.

Take the First Step Toward a More Fulfilling Life

Are you ready to stop letting pain control your life? Online therapy gives you the tools you need to live fully, even with chronic pain. Schedule a free 15-minute consultation today to learn how ACT can help you regain control and start living the life you deserve.

What people often get wrong about chronic pain and therapy

Beginning with the fear that seeing me means someone thinks it’s in your head. It isn’t, and I don’t think that.

A smiling Colt Gordon with curly hair and a beard is wearing a white shirt, standing in front of a colorful landscape background and a bookshelf.

The Misconception

A flare means my progress was fake.

The Reality

Flares are part of chronic conditions — they're weather, not verdict. The progress that counts is what a flare can no longer take from you: the skills stay learned, the values stay chosen, and the recovery-to-baseline gets faster. Progress in this work is measured across months, not mornings.

The Misconception

Accepting my pain means giving up on getting better.

The Reality

Acceptance isn't surrender — keep your doctors, treatments, and every avenue of relief. What acceptance ends is the second war: the resistance, the bargaining, the daily rage at reality that burns energy pain didn't already take. What you resist, persists. Dropping that fight is a strategy, not a defeat.

The Misconception

Distraction is the only mental trick for pain.

The Reality

Distraction is a coping tool with a short shelf life — the attention always comes back. ACT works the deeper mechanism: changing your *relationship* with the sensation so it can be present without commanding attention. Observed pain and obeyed pain are different experiences.

The Misconception

My life restarts when the pain finally stops.

The Reality

"The pain needs to go away first" is the belief that keeps life on indefinite hold — and hold is exactly where chronic pain wants you. The pain is on the bus; we can work with that. Clients are consistently surprised how far into the background pain drifts once it stops being the driver.

The Misconception

Nobody without my condition could possibly help.

The Reality

Lived experience of your exact condition isn't the qualification — skilled work with the pattern is: the fear-avoidance loop, the grief for the old body, the identity rebuild. Those run remarkably alike across conditions. What you need isn't a matching diagnosis; it's someone who won't flinch and won't mollycoddle.

The Misconception

Online therapy is second-best for someone like me.

The Reality

For chronic pain, online is arguably first-best: no commute spending your energy budget, no waiting-room chairs, no canceling on high-pain days — the sessions happen from whatever position your body allows. The access barrier that therapy always had for pain patients simply isn't there.

The Misconception

Pain and suffering are the same thing.

The Reality

Pain is the sensation; suffering is what the mind builds around it — the catastrophizing, the identity collapse, the future written off. Pain may not be fully optional. A remarkable amount of the suffering is. That's not a platitude; it's the treatment target.

The Misconception

Protecting myself means doing less of everything.

The Reality

Guarding has its medical place — your physicians set those limits, not me. But avoidance beyond the medically necessary shrinks life without shrinking pain, and deconditioning often feeds the cycle. The path back is gradual, values-led re-engagement inside your real limits. Smaller life is not the same as safer life.

The Misconception

Seeing a therapist for pain means people think it’s all in my head.

The Reality

Your pain is real — full stop, no asterisk. Therapy enters because chronic pain is also exhausting, isolating, and life-narrowing, and because the struggle *against* pain adds a second layer of suffering on top of the first. Treating that layer isn't doubting your pain. It's refusing to let it take more than it already has.

The Misconception

The intensity of my pain equals the amount of damage in my body.

The Reality

Pain science says otherwise: pain is an alarm produced by a protective nervous system, and in chronic pain that system often stays sensitized long after tissues have done their healing. This is physiology, not imagination — and it's also leverage, because a sensitized alarm can be retrained.

    Real answers for people whose energy is already spoken for

    What therapy adds alongside your medical care, what realistic goals look like, and why online sessions were practically designed for you. Anything else fits in a free 15-minute consultation, heating pad welcome.

    Let's Talk

    Set up a 15-minute free consultation.
    The hardest part is reaching out — so we keep it small. Fifteen minutes, no paperwork, no pressure. If I'm not the right fit, I'll say so and point you to someone who is. Either way, you leave with a next step.
    Request Appointment