How do you pronounce your name – Veronique – and where does it come from?
My name is pronounced Vair-uh-neek.’ It’s French-Canadian :-).
How can I receive blog posts by email?
You can subscribe here.
How do I contact you?
Use my contact form or email me directly veronique (at) chronicillnesstraumastudies (dot) com
Are you practicing medicine or psychotherapy? Can I schedule an appointment with you?
I am no longer in clinical practice.
Why did you leave medicine?
Here’s a first blog post on that topic.
What’s your story? Do you have a chronic illness? What is your chronic illness?
My symptoms of chronic fatigue (ME/CFS) developed very gradually over a period of about 10 years. I then became bedridden for almost a year and have been slowly improving since then by healing from old trauma wounds as well as by using skills I’ve developed as a result of my research, personal work and experience working with trauma. Here’s my story.
Questions About My Trauma & Chronic Illness Blog
How do you connect trauma and chronic illness?
The science of trauma is showing that life experiences interact with our genes to influence our nervous systems, immune systems and other organs to shape long-term health.
You can get the overview, links to posts and a number of free downloadables in The Essential Guide to Chronic Illness, Trauma and the Nervous System.
Where did you first get the ideas whereby trauma helps make sense of chronic illness?
When I retrained as a psychotherapist, I attended Naropa University’s somatic psychology program. I was writing a paper for Christine Caldwell, Ph.D. a teacher and later director of the program who greatly influenced my thinking. Her book “Getting our Bodies Back,” describes how we sometimes have to cut off a part of ourselves in order to survive circumstances that give us no way out. According to her theory these experiences can be traumatic and leave us with emotional or psychological symptoms. In learning about this perspective I thought about how a physical symptom such as high blood pressure might also result from having had to cut a part of ourselves off, such as a physiological fight, flight or freeze response. The rest of the theory has evolved over the past 15 years since. I’ll write a blog post about it.
Can You Heal Effects of Trauma? If so, How?
Yes. Here are my favorite “Tools,” Books and Therapies. Here’s a detailed overview of the blog, the science and how trauma works to affect risk.
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