Psychotherapy for migraine in Stockholm
Living with migraine can affect everyday life, relationships, and your ability to do the things you want and need to do. In therapy, you can receive support in dealing with the psychological burden and the emotions and life changes that may accompany recurring migraine.
You are welcome to contact licensed psychologist Maria Sandgren for therapy sessions in Östermalm, Stockholm, or online.
What is migraine?
Migraine is a neurological condition that can involve recurring attacks of intense headache and other symptoms, such as nausea and sensitivity to light and sound. For many people, migraine affects considerably more than the hours or days of the attack itself. The time before and after an attack may also involve fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and a need for recovery.
Living with recurring migraine can therefore affect your entire life situation. It may become difficult to plan work, social activities, and things you enjoy doing. For some, the unpredictability creates a constant sense of anticipation: Will I be able to do what I have planned? Will I have to cancel again?
How can migraine be treated?
Medical treatment for migraine is provided within healthcare services and may include medication to prevent or relieve attacks. Therapy is not a substitute for medical treatment, but it can be part of addressing psychological and emotional processes that may interact with physical symptoms.
Within ISTDP and other forms of affect-focused therapy, therapists also work with functional and somatic symptoms. For some people, physical symptoms may interact with strong emotions, inner conflicts, and anxiety or stress responses that have been difficult to recognise or process. In therapy, we explore whether such connections are present and, if so, what significance they may have for your particular symptoms.
This may involve experiences and relationships in which it has been difficult to give space to your own emotions and needs. For others, long-term stress, difficult life events, or traumatic experiences may be part of the picture. As we develop a greater understanding of how physical reactions, emotions, and life circumstances are connected, it may also become possible to work with factors that contribute to maintaining symptoms.
At the same time, therapy can provide space for what it means to live with migraine. Many people describe grief and frustration over the recurring interruptions to their lives, the time they feel they have lost, and not being able to live as freely as they would like. These emotions, too, need space to be experienced and understood.
Consequences of migraine
Recurring migraine can affect relationships, work, and leisure, and take a great deal of energy. When it is difficult to know when the next attack will occur, life can become more restricted and unpredictable. Stress responses, low mood, and worry may follow, along with a sense of having less freedom to shape your own life.
For some, this also raises larger questions about identity and direction in life. Who am I when I can no longer do what I used to do? How do I want to live when my body imposes limits I would not have chosen? And how do I find my way back to what feels important and meaningful?
A life with less migraine
An important aim of therapy is to explore whether emotional processes, inner conflicts, and stress responses contribute to symptoms and, when this is the case, to work towards reducing migraine attacks and other forms of pain.
At the same time, change is about more than symptoms. Living with a recurring illness can in itself involve a psychological and emotional burden that needs space and attention. In therapy, we can therefore also work with the grief, frustration, and sense of discouragement that can arise when life is interrupted again and again.
When symptoms decrease or become less limiting, more space may open up for what has previously had to take a back seat. This may mean being able to plan your life with greater freedom, participate more fully in relationships and work, return to activities you have missed, and feel greater confidence in your own ability to influence your life.
The aim is for you to have greater freedom to live the life you want to live – with more presence, agency, and space for what matters to you.
Affect-focused therapy for migraine
In affect-focused therapy, we explore together what you would like help with and what happens within you as we approach situations and experiences that are meaningful to you. We pay attention to emotions, but also to anxiety, physical stress responses, and the ways you have developed to manage what feels difficult.
An important part of the work is distinguishing between emotions and anxiety or stress responses. What is sometimes described as “a lot of feelings” may, for example, be a state of intense inner arousal, many thoughts occurring at once, or a sense that something is about to go wrong. Emotions, by contrast, can provide information about how we are affected by what is happening, what matters to us, and what we need.
For someone living with migraine, there may also be an understandable vigilance towards signals from the body. In therapy, we therefore carefully explore how physical reactions, emotions, and anxiety interact, without assuming in advance that all symptoms have the same explanation.
When emotions that have previously been difficult to approach can be recognised and processed, anxiety and physical stress responses may decrease. For some people, this may also contribute to changes in functional and somatic symptoms.
At the same time, we work with how migraine affects your life here and now. This may involve grief over what you have missed, frustration at having to cancel plans, or the sense of discouragement that can arise when your body repeatedly imposes limitations.
In this way, therapy involves both exploring what may contribute to symptoms and regaining a deeper connection with yourself, your emotions, and what you want to move towards in life.
Book an initital session
I have extensive experience in affect-focused therapy and will meet you with an understanding of how migraine and other difficulties affect your particular life. Together, we explore what you would like help with and what kind of therapeutic approach may be right for you.
I see clients at my practice in Östermalm, Stockholm, and also offer online sessions.
Maria Sandgren
Licensed Psychologist · PhD in Psychology · Certified ISTDP Therapist