Psychological Support for Persistent Physical Symptoms
Persistent physical symptoms can be exhausting, particularly when medical tests are reassuring but you still do not feel well. Dizziness, breathlessness, fatigue, pain, palpitations, gastrointestinal symptoms, weakness, or other recurring bodily sensations can begin to affect activity, confidence, work, sleep, and everyday life.
Symptoms people commonly seek help with
People do not need to know whether a symptom is 'psychological' before seeking support. I work with the distress, uncertainty, attention, avoidance, and behavioural patterns that can develop around persistent symptoms while taking the medical context seriously.
- Dizziness or light-headedness
- Breathlessness or shortness of breath
- Palpitations or heightened heartbeat awareness
- Fatigue or low energy
- Persistent or recurrent pain
- Gastrointestinal symptoms
- Multiple physical symptoms that are difficult to make sense of
How symptoms can persist
Symptoms can be influenced by multiple processes at once. Stress, anxiety, sleep disruption, physiological arousal, attention to bodily sensations, and patterns of avoidance can all affect how symptoms are experienced and maintained. This does not make the symptoms less real. It means that the mechanisms involved may be broader than what routine medical investigations capture.
Reasons people seek support
- Symptoms continue despite reassuring investigations
- Frequent checking or reassurance seeking
- Fear of serious illness
- Difficulty trusting the body
- Fatigue, pain, palpitations, or dizziness interfering with daily life
- Stress or anxiety worsening symptoms
- Feeling dismissed or misunderstood
How therapy can help
Therapy can help reduce distress and symptom-related fear, change patterns of hypervigilance and avoidance, improve coping with uncertainty, and support a more stable relationship with the body. The aim is not to explain symptoms away as psychological, but to understand the full interaction between physical, psychological, and behavioural processes.