Mind-Body Therapy for Chronic Illness

There’s more to your story than what shows up on a chart.

Therapy for Chronic Illness and Pain | Pain Reprocessing Therapy in Portland, OR | Julie Sliga, LPC

Julie supports clients living with chronic illness, long-term health conditions, stress-related illness, and disabilities through integrative, compassionate therapy that addresses the adjustment to a medical diagnosis and changes to daily living, grief and loss, emotional distress, and nervous system dysregulation. Her work helps individuals navigate identity shifts, medical trauma, and the long-term impact of complex health conditions. Therapy can also support regulation, boundaries, and meaning-making in the face of ongoing uncertainty.

Julie Sliga, LPC is a trauma-informed therapist in Portland, Oregon offering evidence-based, mind-body therapy for chronic pain, chronic illness, trauma, anxiety, and work stress and burnout. Her approach integrates EMDR, Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), CBT, and somatic and polyvagal-informed practices. Julie also incorporates attachment-focused therapy and parts work rooted in relational neuroscience and attachment-based care. She provides in-person sessions on Fridays and telehealth across Oregon. Julie provides trauma-informed career counseling through a trauma-informed lens, supporting clients facing burnout, work stress, neurodivergence, and complex relationships with productivity and identity. Julie is in-network with PacificSource and CareOregon (OHP/Medicaid), and offers a limited number of sliding-scale therapy sessions based on availability.

Your body tells a story. Not just through pain, but through protection, wisdom, and the echoes of lived experience. We offer compassionate, evidence-based care for people living with chronic illness, pain, and trauma.

Your Story, Held With Care

Chronic illness can change everything.

A new diagnosis—or years of not having one—can reshape how you move through the world, how others see you, and how you see yourself. You may be grieving a version of life you once knew, navigating shifting limitations, or carrying the invisible weight of symptoms no one else can feel.

You might be exhausted—not just from fatigue, but from advocating, explaining, trying to be believed. From managing appointments, side effects, and systems never built with your body in mind.

And alongside all that? You might be angry. At the losses. At the gaslighting. At the silence and the slowness of care. At how hard it is just to get your needs met.

You might be living in a swirl of ambiguity—symptoms that change from day to day, answers that never quite arrive, identities slipping out of reach.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. We can sit with the unknown. With the grief that arrives in waves. With the fury and the fog. With the tenderness of learning to live in a body that has changed.

There’s room for full-spectrum emotion with me. Grief, anger, and uncertainty can sit alongside moments of lightness, connection, and humor.

Through trauma-informed, mind-body therapy, we’ll explore ways to move toward self-compassion, agency, and even moments of ease—at your pace, with your permission, and in deep respect for your lived reality.

Therapeutic Modalities

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) • Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) • Mindfulness-Based Interventions • Motivational Interviewing (MI) • Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) • Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) • Somatic Experiencing (SE)

What I’ve Learned From Listening

I’ve spent decades supporting people navigating life after diagnosis—through systems like vocational rehab, Social Security, and long-term disability. I’ve listened to stories full of fatigue, resilience, grief, and reinvention. I’ve learned that healing doesn’t always mean resolution; it often begins with simply being believed. And sometimes, it means finding new ways to live with what’s here right now.

Sessions are Curently Offered by Telehealth.

Begin the Inquiry Process.

We Often Talk About:

Adjusting Expectations • Agoraphobia • Anger • Anxiety • Being Disbelieved • Boundaries • Caregiver Burnout • Career Disruption • Codependency • Creativity • Diagnosis Limbo • Disability and Ableism • Disenfranchised Grief • Emotional Labor • Fatigue • Feeling Like a Burden • Flare-Ups • Forgiveness • Guilt • Gratitude • Grief • Healing • IBS Anxiety • Identity Loss • Insomnia • Isolation • Listening to the Body • Medical Trauma • Meaning-Making • Mindfulness • Moments of Ease • Navigating Intimacy • Nervous System Regulation • Parenting • Pacing • Pleasure • Reclaiming Agency • Relationship Strain • Resourcefulness • Self-Advocacy • Self-Compassion • Tiny Joys • Uncertainty • Values

My Philosophy of Care

Everybody—and every body—holds wisdom, deserves care, and is worthy of respect.

Too often, standard medical care for chronic illness focuses on managing symptoms or stabilizing lab results—while the emotional impact of living with illness is rushed out of the exam room. The undercurrents of your inner life—grief, fear, fatigue, identity shifts, and the work of simply being in your body—also need space and care.

In many models of care, your story gets reduced to test results or treatment plans. The deeper truths of your day-to-day life—experiences invisible to most, but intimately known to you—are left longing for a place to be heard.

That’s not my approach.

I hold space for the parts of your story that don’t show up on a scan.

Chronic illness is real, complex, and shaped by far more than just the physical body—it’s shaped by your lived experience, your nervous system, and how you’ve been responded to over time.

Your body has its own language. I’m here to help you listen to it—with care and compassion.