What Makes Syntropy Different

There’s No Manual for This. So I Wrote My Approach From Scratch.

If you live with a chronic illness, you’ve probably heard it: “It’s just anxiety.” If you’ve lived in cycles of attachment related trauma or have experienced emotional neglect, you’ve probably wondered if there is just something wrong with you because telling your story is too complicated. What doesn’t make sense to an outside observer makes sense to me. I thrive on puzzles and systems level thinking. I don’t do generic, and you shouldn’t either. That’s what makes Syntropy Counseling unique.

The gap nobody talks about

Traditional counseling runs on diagnoses. Find the code, follow the treatment plan. The DSM has nothing built for what chronic illness does to a person emotionally. The one diagnosis that touches medical conditions covers mood changes caused directly by the illness’s biology, and it specifically excludes your reaction to living with it. Adjustment disorder is a catch-all built for stressors that eventually pass. Neither recognizes grief, lost identity, or a future you can’t count on, and neither comes with a treatment guide.

It’s the same story for adoption and attachment wounds. Same for complex trauma, where people usually get sorted into PTSD or BPD, even though many don’t fit either one. Emotional neglect often fits nothing at all, because nothing “happened.” Something just never did.

If you don’t fit the manual, a therapist working from the manual has nothing to offer you. So you get coping skills for the wrong problem, and you leave feeling like you failed at therapy.

You didn’t fail. The manual has a hole in it.

So I built my own approach

I don’t work from a standard playbook because there isn’t one for the people I see. What I do instead:

I do grief work. Grief for the life and body you used to have. Grief for the childhood you should have had, including the neglect, the attachment wounds, and the things that were never named. The hidden stuff festers and leaves a hole that most people never get to talk about. I help you find words for it.

I have the hard conversations. Not the polished ones. If you’re angry, scared, or grieving something that doesn’t have a nice ending, we say it out loud. I’m not going to rush you toward a silver lining.

I help you build what comes next. For clients with chronic illness, that means grieving the old life, figuring out what matters to you now, and blending the two into something more fulfilling than just surviving. I work with clients who have lived with disorganized attachment due to childhood trauma make sense of their core wounds, and seek to address them. We go deeper.

I take your physical health seriously. In session, I’ll ask about things like your iron and vitamin D, because persistent depression sometimes has a physical piece that gets missed. I’m not replacing your doctor. I provide referrals and direction, and I help you navigate the maze of appointments, specialists, and dismissals. You also get a place to rant about all of it, because you need one.

Underneath it all, I use ACT, existential, and relational therapy, with CBT and DBT skills where they help. I choose tools based on you, not on a code.

So many times I see clients coming in for therapy believing they are broken, disordered, or have a permanent mental health issue. However, more often than not, I see real people responding to real stressors, having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.

What spurred this change in my approach

A while back, a client came to me and asked what the treatment approach is for someone who is strugging with living with a chronic illness. I had to stand back a moment and reply, “There isn’t one.” She was just as confused as I was when I entered the counseling profession. She then asked me, “Then how do you treat me?” To which I responded, “I had to create my own manual through trial and error, research, and deep dives into literature.” She told me, “Well, it’s working I guess!” This spurred my passion for creating a space for those who don’t fit into most spaces.

Who this is for

This is for you if you’ve been told it’s just anxiety, if you’ve explained your illness to a therapist who nodded but didn’t get it, or if you grew up in a home that looked fine but left a hole you can’t quite name. One thing I tell clients early on: you’re not behind, and you’re not overreacting. You’re responding normally to something that changed your whole life. We’re going to treat it that way. This is a space for clients who have more on their plate than they can handle and struggle with stress. This is the place for people facing hidden challenges that don’t perfectly fit in a shiny gift box that can be tied with a bow.

You don’t have to fit in a box here. That’s what makes Syntropy Counseling different.