Living Well and Coping with Long Term Illness

If you are coping with a long term illness, like chronic pain, stress or other chronic health conditions, including physical conditions, you are more likely to suffer from anxiety or low mood.

You may be looking for support from a professional therapist to help you deal with your mental health and wellbeing as a result of your Long Term Condition (LTC) and at NHS Talking Therapies, we offer a range of services to people in Kent and Medway and the surrounding areas.

Your mental health is equally as important as your physical health, and often, the emotional struggles of dealing with a long term illness – like experiencing anxiety or stress – can make the physical symptoms of your condition worsen. These physical effects of an LTC can be complex, upsetting and hard to manage, which may cause you to worry, overthink, avoid and withdraw.

We support a range of chronic illnesses, such as:

• Cardiovascular Disease
• Chronic fatigue and Fibromyalgia
• Diabetes
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Long COVID
• Lung conditions
• Musculoskeletal pain

As a result of your long term illness, you may experience symptoms of anxiety, depression or stress and uncertainty. Our Talking Therapies service for the Kent and Medway area can assist you with getting support through a range of therapies, including:

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
• Counselling for Depression
• Digital Talking Therapies, offered through Supported Online Therapy and mental health webinars
• Dynamic Interpersonal Therapies (DIT)
• Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
• Interpersonal Therapy (IPT)
• Talking Therapies for Couples
• Employment Support

Coping with a long term illness could decrease a person’s quality of life because of the way you can feel both mentally and physically. A chronic, long term condition can make you feel socially isolated, experience low self-esteem or endure stigma and discrimination. As well as feeling worried or overthinking, you may feel tired, frustrated or stressed when dealing with pain, tests, treatments of flare-ups, as a result of chronic illnesses.

These are the factors that increase your chance of developing a long-term mental health condition, like anxiety or depression. So, on top of your chronic illness, you also have to deal with a mental health condition and you may be seeking specialist support.

We want you to remember that you are not alone, and our team of professional therapists at NHS Talking Therapies are here to help you take the steps you need to take care of your mental health and your physical health, if you are located in Kent and Medway or the surrounding areas. Our Talking Therapies can help you with coping with your long term illness.

How can talking therapies help you cope with a long term illness?

Through accessing the service, our therapists can support you in coping with long term illness by exploring strategies and skills to manage anxiety and low mood to help you manage your daily mood, ultimately boosting your mental health. We will also look at the links between your thoughts, behaviours, physical symptoms and emotions, then introduce some key methods of thinking to make some helpful adaptations.. In turn, our aim is to support you and improve your quality of life and help you live well with an LTC.

You can self-refer to our services via our Limbic referral assistant, by calling us on 0333 091 0414 or through a GP or healthcare professional referral. Once we receive this initial referral, we can organise the best way to move forward and begin your talking therapies treatment.

At NHS Talking Therapies Kent and Medway, our goal is to support you with your long term illness, like chronic health conditions, as best we can, and ensure that you can manage and look after your mental health and wellbeing in ways that work for you.