Tracey Chester, LMFT (# 93387)

Meet the Founder of Pain Trauma Institute, Tracey Chester

“I view most issues from a grief perspective. Loss of body. Loss of the life you’d imagined, loss of the childhood you wish you had. Once we can see things in terms of loss, we can grieve and move forward.”

For Tracey, it is a personal mission to help patients struggling with chronic pain or illness to achieve a full meaningful life, despite their health struggles. Personally experiencing the devastating effects of living with chronic pain have informed Tracey’s approach to working with clients and founding the San Diego Pain Trauma Institute.

WHAT: Tracey is a certified clinical trauma professional, a certified grief counselor, and a surf therapist.

WHO: She works with adults and older adults (65+) struggling with chronic pain as well as the emotional effects of developmental trauma, medical trauma, and the trauma of chronic illness.

WHERE: Tracey sees clients at the Pain Trauma Institute office and via telehealth (video visits).

EDUCATION

California School of Professional Psychology, M.A., Marriage and Family Therapy, 2011

Stanford University M.S., Geological and Earth Science, 1994

University of Miami, B.S. Geology and Mathematics, 1991

ADDITIONAL CERTIFICATIONS AND TRAINING

Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, 2018

Sand Tray Therapy Levels 1 & 2, 2016

Certified Adaptive Surf Instructor, AMPSURF, Isasusrf

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“Shame and self-judgment undercut our mental health improvement. The science of trauma shows us more and more that none of our symptoms are our fault. We are not weak, our brains were compromised with trauma.”

Conditions

  • Medical & Chronic Illness Trauma

  • PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

  • Complex Developmental Trauma

  • Mood Disorders

  • Chronic Pain

  • Anxiety

  • Bipolar Disorder

  • Chronic Illness

  • Chronic Illness: cancer

  • Coping Skills

  • Depression

  • Family Conflict

  • Grief

  • Life Transitions

  • Sleep or Insomnia

  • Special Women's Issues (grief, stillborn, infant loss)

  • Postpartum Depression

Services

  • Grief Counseling

  • Couples/Family Therapy related to illness

  • Pre-Procedure Assessments

    • Spinal Cord Stimulator Assessments

    • Opioid pump

  • Group Therapy

  • Individual Therapy & Counseling

Therapeutic Style and Treatment Specialties

  • Acceptance and Commitment (ACT)

  • Attachment-based Therapy

  • Compassion Focused

  • Existential Family / Marital Family Systems

  • Integrative Internal Family Systems (IFS)

  • Mindfulness-Based (MBCT)

  • Narrative

  • Psychodynamic

  • Sandplay

  • Trauma Focused

  • Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (Janina Fisher)

  • Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

You can also find Tracey Chester on LinkedIn, Medium, and working with the Groundswell Community Project.

 
 

Content Written by Tracey

Tracey writes about interesting changes in and new research from the health and psychotherapy space, personal experience, and the interconnectedness of being both a therapist and a chronic pain patient.

 

Treating Chronic Pain Patients Through a Grief Perspective

The American Academy of Pain Management estimates that approximately 100 million Americans are living with pain today. That number astonishingly exceeds the number of people suffering from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, combined. Pain-management specialists are becoming increasingly aware that chronic pain is associated with depression and other mood disorders (in fact, 77% of pain patients report feeling depressed). This has resulted in more psychotherapy referrals of patients with co-morbid chronic pain and mood disorder… Read the full article from The San Diego Psychologist.

Grief and Heartache: The Day My Heart Broke On Dog Beach

“One of the reasons the death of someone close is so profoundly shaking for us is that it holds up the mirror to us and says, “you too”. Sometimes this may seem a welcome prospect- our wish to join the loved one is strong, and our aversion to life without the person is so great. Yet there is a way in which we draw back from facing our own vulnerability and the prospect of our own death. We read of death daily, sometimes skirt close to it in our own and loved ones’ illnesses, but when it enters the portals of our own family and close friendships, it speaks in a different, more intimate language. The mysteries and quandaries of death ask their recurrent questions: is there life beyond? Do we know one another in a personal way? Do we know ourselves? Or do we become a part of some great cosmic energy? There are no sure answers to these questions. The best answer- as the best memorial to our loved one — is to live our lives fully, one day at a time.” -Martha Whitmore Hickman

Living with Chronic Pain:

Lessons of a life-semi-lived. The story of a mother with trauma and chronic pain through the eyes of her daughter

By Tracey Chester, LMFT

I am a psychotherapist, and I am also a patient.

I am a mom, and I am a daughter

I have chronic pain, and I have childhood trauma

These last two factors overlap significantly. They are one and the same in the sense that in these cases, the brain becomes highly sensitized and alert, when it is exposed to repetitive trauma as a child. The body follows suit, by being primed to keep fighting, so long after an injury “heals”, the pain remains. And it cascades….