Friday, October 2nd, 2026
Invisible Scars, Courageous Strength: Resilience in Chronic Illness and Pain
In this presentation, we’ll explore the often unseen ways chronic illness and chronic pain can affect identity, relationships, body trust, independence, and emotional well-being. Blending clinical insight with lived-experience perspectives, we’ll look at the complex connection between chronic conditions and mental health, while reframing resilience as an evolving process that can include grief, rest, adaptation, self-advocacy, boundaries, and connection. You’ll leave with practical, trauma-informed strategies for helping clients navigate life in a changing and unpredictable body.
We’ll learn how to:
- Recognize common psychological and psychosocial impacts of chronic illness and pain, including grief, identity changes, changes in body trust, anxiety, and depression
- Distinguish emotional and physical responses to chronic conditions from signs of a co-occurring mental health concern
- Understand how medical experiences, social environments, and systemic factors can influence mental health, adaptation, and resilience
- Recognize grief, loss, uncertainty, and identity changes as experiences that may occur throughout chronic illness rather than in a predictable progression
- Apply trauma-informed strategies that support autonomy, self-advocacy, body trust, connection, and psychological well-being
