Chronic Pain Therapy in Barrie, ON: Counselling & Psychotherapy for Persistent Pain
At Reset Counselling & Psychotherapy in Barrie, Ontario, we offer individual psychotherapy for people living with chronic and persistent pain. Our registered mental health professionals — Registered Psychotherapists and Registered Social Workers — provide evidence-based counselling that addresses the emotional, cognitive, behavioural, and relational consequences of living with ongoing pain.
Therapy for chronic pain does not suggest your pain is imaginary. It complements your medical care by addressing what persistent pain does to your mind, your relationships, and your daily life. We offer in-person sessions at our Barrie office and virtual therapy across Ontario.
✔ Virtual sessions from home ✔ Registered psychotherapists and social workers ✔ No physician referral required ✔ Extended health receipts
What Is Chronic or Persistent Pain?
Chronic pain refers to pain that continues beyond the expected healing period — commonly longer than three months. It may involve fibromyalgia, arthritis, back pain, neuropathic pain, or other long-term physical conditions.
Persistent pain involves biological, psychological, and social influences. That is the biopsychosocial model that shapes how Canadian pain care is understood and delivered. Whatever the contributing factors, the pain is real. Psychotherapy addresses how you experience and live with that pain — not whether the physical cause exists.
How Chronic Pain Can Affect Mood, Sleep, Relationships and Daily Life
Living with persistent pain touches nearly every part of daily life. People we work with often describe:
- Anxiety and hypervigilance about symptoms
- Depression and low mood that builds gradually over time
- Grief and loss — for the life, identity, or abilities they had before
- Irritability and difficulty managing emotions
- Disrupted sleep and physical exhaustion
- Social withdrawal and a shrinking support network
- Strain on relationships and intimacy
- Changes to work, career, and daily function
- Reduced confidence and self-esteem
- Fear about the future and what pain may take next
- Loss of independence and a sense of being a burden
These mental health realities can add complexity to the experience of facing chronic pain.
How Chronic Pain Therapy Can Help
Pain and emotional distress do not operate independently. The relationship between them is well-established — and it is one of the most important things to understand before starting therapy.
When people come to us, they often arrive having managed pain for years without addressing what it has done to their mental and emotional wellbeing. Therapy does not promise to eliminate physical symptoms. What it can do is meaningfully change how you relate to pain, how you function day to day, and how much space pain takes up in your life.
The following three areas are where most clients begin to notice real change.
Understanding the Pain–Stress–Nervous System Cycle
Chronic pain can affect the nervous system, stress levels, sleep, mood, and daily functioning. Stress and emotional strain can also influence how the nervous system responds to pain. Therapy can help you understand these connections and develop practical strategies for managing pain-related stress, improving coping, and supporting your overall well-being.
Emotional distress, pain-related fear, and pain catastrophizing can amplify that sensitivity. Thoughts and emotions feed into physical pain responses, and physical pain feeds back into emotional distress. Therapy helps you understand this cycle — not to dismiss what your body is experiencing, but to interrupt patterns that make things harder than they need to be.
Building Coping, Pacing and Emotional Regulation Skills
Functioning well with persistent pain requires skills that most people are never taught. In therapy, clients work on:
- Pacing to reduce boom-and-bust activity patterns
- Coping strategies for managing flares and setbacks
- Distress tolerance and relaxation techniques
- Sleep-supportive behaviours that persistent pain often disrupts
- Mindfulness to reduce stress responses
- Setting boundaries around energy and capacity
- Self-advocacy within healthcare and relationships
These are practical, learnable skills that make daily life more manageable.
Reconnecting With Identity, Values and Meaningful Activities
Chronic pain reshapes identity. Roles shift, plans get cancelled, and independence narrows. Over time, that erodes a person's sense of who they are and what life can offer.
A significant part of therapy involves rebuilding psychological flexibility — the ability to hold difficult physical and emotional experiences while still moving toward what matters most to you. This means exploring your values, reconnecting with meaningful activity, practising self-compassion, processing grief, and setting realistic goals. Quality of life does not have to be contingent on the disappearance of symptoms.
Evidence-Based Therapy Approaches for Chronic Pain at Reset
There is no single modality that works for every person. Our therapists draw on several evidence-based approaches and tailor their work to your specific needs, history, and goals.
Who We Support With Chronic Pain
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Chronic Pain Conditions and Experiences Clients May Bring to Therapy
We support adults living with a wide range of chronic pain conditions and persistent physical health challenges. Clients come to us with experiences including:
- Fibromyalgia
- Arthritis and inflammatory conditions
- Neuropathic pain
- Chronic back pain
- Persistent headaches and migraines
- Ongoing pain following injury
- Medically complex conditions
- Disability and adjustment to long-term physical limitations
We support the emotional, psychological, and relational consequences of living with these conditions. Reset does not medically treat or diagnose any physical condition.
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Mental Health Concerns That Often Accompany Persistent Pain
Chronic pain is rarely a standalone experience. It can frequently go hand-in-hand with mental health concerns. Clients often bring:
- Anxiety and chronic worry about symptoms and the future
- Depression and persistent low mood
- Grief over lost abilities, roles, or relationships
- Trauma and PTSD, including medical trauma
- Stress and emotional exhaustion
- Irritability and emotional dysregulation
- Loneliness and social isolation
- Relationship strain and communication difficulties
- Low self-esteem and loss of identity
- Sleep difficulties
- Fear, avoidance, and withdrawal
- Adjustment to medical conditions or disability
Our team is here to support you through the complex challenges of mental health that can accompany living with chronic pain and chronic illness.
What to Expect From Chronic Pain Counselling at Reset
Your First Chronic Pain Therapy Session
During your first session, your therapist will take time to understand your story: how pain has affected your daily life, your relationships, your sense of self, and what you are hoping to work toward. Together, you will discuss priorities and what a manageable pace looks like for you. Questions are always welcome, and nothing is rushed.
A Personalized Therapy Plan Built Around Your Goals
After the first session, your therapist collaborates with you to build a plan focused on your specific goals. That may include work toward:
- Improved daily functioning and activity levels
- Greater emotional resilience and coping capacity
- Healthier sleep routines and energy management
- Better boundaries and self-advocacy
- Reconnecting with relationships and meaningful activities
- Pacing strategies to reduce setbacks
Therapy as Part of Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Care
Psychotherapy works best as part of a broader care picture. We do not replace your family physician, pain specialist, physiotherapist, or occupational therapist. We work alongside them.
Your medical team manages medication decisions, physical rehabilitation, and emergency care. Our role is to support the psychological and emotional dimensions of living with persistent pain — processing the impact, building skills, and helping you function and connect more fully.
Meet a Therapist Who Understands
Chronic Pain
Therapy Tailored to Chronic Pain
Living with a chronic illness is hard enough without worrying about whether your therapist understands. We make it easier to find a therapist whose style, approach, and availability genuinely suit you.
Registered Mental Health Professionals With Evidence-Based Training
Our chronic pain team consists of Registered Psychotherapists and a Registered Nurse — regulated mental health professionals bound by professional and ethical standards. Our therapists hold training in CBT, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), mindfulness, and EMDR, and we maintain a practice-wide commitment to ongoing clinical training and peer supervision.
Finding the Right Therapist Fit Matters
The therapeutic relationship shapes the outcome of therapy — particularly for complex, ongoing challenges like chronic illness.
If you are unsure which therapist is the right fit, our therapist-matching tool can help you narrow it down based on your needs, preferences, and availability. You can also email us at info@resetbarrie.ca and we will assist you directly. A good match is worth taking a moment to find.
Chronic Pain Therapists at Reset Counselling & Psychotherapy
Tamari Thompson-Kraft, Registered Psychotherapist
Tamari supports clients facing chronic pain, helping them process trauma, PTSD and ongoing health conditions. She brings over 15 years of experience including EMDR training and a genuine commitment to helping clients process what talk therapy alone hasn't been able to reach.
Kyleigh Wells, Registered Nurse
Kyleigh is a Registered Nurse with the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) practicing psychotherapy under CRPO guidelines. She actively works in a hospital setting with those navigating chronic illness, chronic pain and related symptoms of anxiety, depression, grief and loss. Her approach is compassionate and grounded.
Chronic Pain Therapy Near You in Barrie, Orillia and Simcoe County
Established Local In-Person Chronic Pain Counselling in Barrie
Reset Counselling & Psychotherapy has been serving Barrie and the broader Simcoe region for over 10 years.
Our Barrie office at 151 Essa Road, Unit 201, serves clients across the city and surrounding Simcoe County. The Allandale area location is easy to reach from most parts of Barrie, with free parking and easy access from Hwy 400.
If in-person therapy matters to you — and for many clients navigating chronic pain, the physical presence of a therapist is genuinely grounding — our Barrie office provides a private, comfortable, and welcoming space.
Virtual Therapy for Orillia, Innisfil, Bradford, New Tecumseth and Across Ontario
We offer virtual psychotherapy to clients across Simcoe County — including Orillia, Innisfil, Bradford, and New Tecumseth — and province-wide across Ontario. Virtual sessions run on a secure platform and are available for all of our chronic pain counselling services.
Virtual care offers flexibility to clients if distance or mobility are making it difficult to access support.
Chronic Pain Therapy Fees, Insurance and Booking
Session Fees, Insurance Coverage and Referrals
Sessions are $170 for 50 minutes, with no tax added. We accept Visa and Mastercard. Many extended health plans cover sessions with Registered Psychotherapists, Registered Social Workers, and Registered Nurses providing psychotherapy, but coverage depends on your plan and your provider's designation.
We do not offer direct billing. After each session, you receive a receipt to submit to your insurer for reimbursement. Therapy at Reset is not covered by OHIP.
No referral is needed to book as a private client. Some insurance plans have their own referral requirements for reimbursement, so check your coverage details before booking.
How to Get Started With Reset
- Find your therapist. Browse our therapist profiles or use the Therapist Matching Quiz.
- Choose your format. Meet in person at our Barrie office or online anywhere in Ontario.
- Book securely online. Pick a time that works for you and confirm your first session.
Frequently Asked Questions About
Chronic Pain Therapy
Can therapy help chronic pain if my pain is physical?
Yes. Psychotherapy supports coping, daily functioning, and emotional wellbeing for people with real, physical chronic pain. It does not suggest your pain is imaginary. Therapy addresses how persistent pain affects your mind, relationships, and daily life — alongside, not instead of, medical treatment.
Can psychotherapy cure chronic pain?
Therapy does not promise to eliminate the physical source of your pain or guarantee a cure. Goals typically include improved coping, better daily functioning, emotional resilience, and quality of life. Psychotherapy transforms your relationship to pain — not always the pain itself.
What type of therapy is best for chronic pain?
The most effective approach depends on the individual. CBT and ACT have strong research support for chronic pain. Mindfulness-based approaches help regulate the stress response. Trauma-informed therapy, including EMDR, may be appropriate when past trauma overlaps with present pain. Your therapist will tailor the approach to your specific needs.
How many chronic pain therapy sessions will I need?
Duration varies based on your goals, personal history, the complexity of what you are working through, and how therapy is progressing. Some clients focus on a specific concern in fewer sessions; others benefit from longer-term support. Your therapist checks in regularly to ensure the work is moving in a meaningful direction.
Do I need a doctor's referral for chronic pain counselling?
No referral is needed to book with us as a private client. You can book directly online. Note that some insurance plans have their own referral requirements for reimbursement — check your coverage details before booking.
Is chronic pain therapy covered by insurance in Ontario?
Many extended health plans cover sessions with Registered Psychotherapists and Registered Social Workers. Coverage depends on your plan and which credential designations it recognises. We provide a receipt after each session for you to submit to your insurer. Therapy at Reset is not covered by OHIP.
Can I do chronic pain therapy online?
Yes. We offer virtual psychotherapy across Ontario, including for clients in Orillia, Innisfil, Bradford, New Tecumseth, and beyond. Online sessions are available for all of our chronic pain counselling services. In-person sessions are available at our Barrie office for clients who prefer to meet face to face.
Start Chronic Pain Therapy in Barrie, ON
Living with persistent pain is hard. You deserve support that addresses all of it — not just the physical, but the emotional weight, the relational strain, and the quiet grief that often goes unacknowledged.
At Reset Counselling & Psychotherapy in Barrie, our registered therapists offer compassionate, evidence-based psychotherapy for people navigating chronic pain. In-person and virtual options are available. No referrals needed. No cure guarantees — just honest, skilled support for building a life that has more room in it.
When you are ready, we are here.