Long-term physical health conditions
“Individuals with a long-term health condition are 2 to 3 times more likely to develop a mental health presentation such as anxiety or depression”
We recognise that our physical health can impact on our mental wellbeing due to the stress that managing a long-term physical health condition can place on us. In turn our mental health can play a role in our physical health as it can impact on our ability to attend to our physical health the best we can.
Are you:
- Managing a long-term physical health condition like diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cardiovascular disease or long covid / post covid syndrome?
- Living with persistent physical symptoms like fatigue, chronic pain or stomach problems? And / or feeling low and/or stressed about your physical symptoms?
Did you know that in addition to medicines and medical treatments, there are psychological adaptations and strategies that you can learn to help manage physical symptoms like pain, fatigue, breathlessness or palpitations? These strategies are not going to make your physical symptoms disappear, but they can help you to cope better. They can also improve your quality of life by helping you to engage in things that matter to you most.
It is common for individuals receiving a long-term physical health diagnosis to struggle to come to terms with the new diagnosis. The impact on their life can be significant. This can impact on mood and make us feel anxious, which in turn can make it difficult for us to adapt as needed to continue to live the most fulfilling life available to us. Managing what others will think about our condition and the impact our own poor health can have on others can also be difficult. Talking therapy support can help in making required adjustments to our lives and in coming to terms with living with a long-term health condition.
Wandsworth Talking Therapies have specially trained teams of clinicians who can support you to overcome difficulties related to your struggles to adapt to, and come to terms with, the impact of a physical health condition. We work closely with local physical health teams including community health care diabetes, long Covid, cardiac, respiratory, pain, and musculo-skeletal teams, to ensure that your physical health care plan includes consideration of your emotional needs and to ensure that every patient receives the most appropriate treatment approach.
Our long-term conditions (or LTC) clinicians receive specialist training and supervision to enable them to work effectively with people who have both long-term physical health conditions and associated emotional challenges. This team is a small group of CBT Therapists and Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners who are extremely passionate about helping individuals with these challenges and uphold a core value to promote good mental health and improvement in quality of life for people who are seen in the service.