Michelle Sumowski, LCSWA
Chronic Illness and POTS Therapist
Living with a chronic illness can affect far more than your physical health. It can change your routines, relationships, independence, identity, and the way you imagined your life would look. And when your symptoms aren't always visible to other people, it can feel especially frustrating and isolating.
Michelle has a special clinical interest in working with individuals living with chronic illness, including Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). She understands that managing a chronic health condition can come with anxiety, grief, uncertainty, frustration, and the exhaustion of constantly having to adjust to what your body needs.
Sometimes you don't need someone to tell you to “think positively.” You need a therapist who understands that your symptoms are real and your mental health matters, too.
Michelle believes therapy should be a safe space where you feel heard, seen, and supported without judgment. She approaches therapy as a collaboration—listening closely to your experiences while helping you recognize strengths you may not realize you already have.
Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Solution-Focused Therapy, and strengths-based approaches, Michelle helps clients explore the thoughts, emotions, and experiences affecting their everyday lives while developing practical strategies for navigating them.
For clients living with POTS or other chronic health conditions, therapy may include navigating changes in identity and independence, medical anxiety, unpredictable symptoms, relationships, work or school, grief surrounding the life you expected to have, and the emotional toll of managing an illness that other people may not fully understand.
Michelle also works with clients experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, life transitions, low self-esteem, and feeling stuck in patterns that no longer serve them. Her approach focuses not only on understanding what's happening, but also on developing practical skills clients can use outside of therapy.
Michelle's goal is to create a therapeutic relationship where your voice matters, your experiences are taken seriously, and you have room to explore both the difficult parts of what you're facing and the parts of yourself that exist beyond them.
Michelle provides therapy to clients in North Carolina and Massachusetts under clinical supervision, with both telehealth and in-person appointments available. She has a special clinical focus on supporting individuals living with POTS and other chronic illnesses, as well as clients experiencing anxiety, depression, medical stress, grief, and major life transitions.
Specialties
- Chronic Illness
- POTS
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Medical Anxiety
- Adjustment to Chronic Illness
- Grief & Loss
- Identity & Life Transitions
- Stress
- Self-Esteem
- CBT
- Solution-Focused Therapy
In network with: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and North Carolina, Aetna, Harvard Pilgrim, Tufts Commercial
Ready to connect with Michelle?
Call Donati Counseling at (339) 244-1455 to schedule an appointment.