Online Psychotherapy for Adults with Chronic Pain, Chronic Illness, and Complex Medical Conditions
Serving patients virtually throughout Tennessee and 40+ other PSYPACT states.
Currently accepting patients with immediate (1-2 weeks) appointment availability.
You’ve done everything to improve your health, but you’re still struggling. Now is the time to try something different. Therapy can help.
Welcome! I’m Dr. Karbasi (pronounced Car-bossy - but I’m really not bossy at all!). I am a psychologist who helps adults with chronic pain and chronic illness navigate the physical and emotional challenges of their conditions so they can reclaim their lives.
When You’ve Tried Everything and Still Aren’t Better
If you’re here, you’ve been living with chronic pain or chronic illness, and you’ve spent months or years searching for answers. You’ve had all the MRIs, tests, and specialist appointments. You’ve tried medications, physical therapy, injections, procedures (even surgeries), alternative treatments, and countless recommendations. Some of these things worked for a while and then stopped. You’ve gotten conflicting opinions and multiple diagnoses and explanations. You’ve been told the cause is your posture, your diet, inflammation, a bone spur, or any other number of things. You’ve done everything you’ve been told to do, but you’re still not feeling much better.
When You’ve Been Left Without Answers
You may have been told you’re too complex, or you just have to learn to live with your condition. You may have been told they can’t find anything wrong and that all your tests are normal, yet no one can explain why you’re still having symptoms. At times you’ve felt judged, not listened to, or even not believed. Maybe you’ve been told it’s “just stress.” You’ve probably been promised a cure or fix by someone, and it didn’t happen. You’ve felt a spark of hope and then let down over and over again. You feel confused, alone, and discouraged at times.
When Your Symptoms Have Taken Over Your Life
You may have stopped doing many of the things you want or need to do. Your relationships, work, hobbies, exercise, or sense of independence have changed. It’s hard to make plans because your symptoms are unpredictable. Even when you’re having a relatively good day, it can be hard to fully enjoy it because you’re wondering when the next flare or setback will come. You find yourself worrying a lot about your symptoms, where all of this is going, what your future will look like, and whether you’ll just keep getting worse. Sometimes you feel trapped by your symptoms.
You May Be Used to Pushing Through
This cycle feels all too familiar to you: you push past your limits, then you crash and burn. After taking a frustratingly long amount of time to recover, you push again and the pattern starts all over, leaving you feeling completely exhausted and in even more pain.
You’ve probably spent a lot of time trying harder, gathering information, and looking for the next thing that might finally make you better. Pushing through, grit, and sheer willpower have likely helped you succeed in many areas of your life. But when it comes to chronic symptoms, you’re finding those same strategies are backfiring. The harder you try to fix the problem and the more you try to do, the more frustrated, overwhelmed, and worse you feel.
Here’s the good news: there is a way to break this pattern—without giving up all the things that matter to you.
You’re Ready for a Different Approach
You might feel lost and as though you don’t have a direction or framework for healing. You are determined to get rid of the pain, so you’ll try anything (even seeing a psychologist!)
You’re here because you’re exhausted with trying the same things over and over with no results. You’re looking for a new way forward. You’re not asking for much. You just want your life, relationships, and hobbies back. You just want to live your life without having to experience and think about pain and symptoms all the time.
A Psychologist Who Understands
You’re looking for an experienced, compassionate psychologist who deeply understands the complexities of chronic pain and chronic illness, what it’s like to be in the medical system, and what it’s like to spend significant amounts of time, money, energy, and emotional capital on recovery and still get nowhere.
I get it, because not only have I worked as a psychologist in medical systems and with patients like you for many years, but I’ve been that patient, too. I had my light bulb moment in which I realized this just wasn’t working, and something drastically different needed to happen to get better. I know firsthand that meaningful improvement and living well are possible.
Your symptoms are real. You deserve a full life. And you don’t have to figure it out alone.
What We’ll Do in Therapy
I’ll help you figure out what might be contributing to your symptoms and keeping you stuck—and find an effective, actionable way forward. You’ll learn how to respond differently to pain and symptoms and change patterns that aren’t working so that you can gradually get back to doing the things that matter to you.
What Can Therapy Actually Change?
Maybe more than you think. Therapy can help you understand why symptoms can become so persistent, quiet the fear surrounding your symptoms, reduce the control they have over your life, and help you begin doing more of the things you’ve stopped doing.
The goal isn’t to make you better at living with a smaller life. It’s to help you build your life back.
Explore the conditions I treat and my approach to treatment.