When the doctor said it was "just anxiety," your body was telling the truth.

A self-paced recovery workbook for chronic illness patients who have been dismissed, doubted, and rewritten by the people who were supposed to help.

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The Medical Gaslighting Recovery Workbook is a 24-page self-guided companion written by Elysia Bronson, RCC — a Registered Clinical Counsellor who lives with chronic illness — designed for patients with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, Long COVID, POTS, EDS, or any complex chronic condition, who have experienced medical gaslighting and want a structured, neuroscience-informed path back to trusting their bodies and their data.

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A reflection of a dense forest with tall green trees on calm water.

Why I built this

A 2023 study found that more than two in three adults with chronic conditions have experienced medical gaslighting. Women, BIPOC patients, obese patients, queer patients, and people with mental health histories are dismissed at documented higher rates. If you have ever left an appointment smaller than when you walked in — questioning the data you tracked, the symptoms you described, the literacy you had carefully built about your own body — what happened to you has a name, and you are not the problem.

I am Elysia Bronson, a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC, BCACC) and Canadian Pain Society Board Member based in British Columbia. I specialize in chronic pain, chronic illness, and medical trauma. I built this workbook because I needed it myself: I have fibromyalgia, a rare neurological pain condition, and a cardiac issue still in workup. I know what it is to be the patient with the binder, the spreadsheet, and the careful notes — and to wonder whether that makes me "too much."

It does not. Your preparation is the skill that has kept you safe. This course is here to help you keep going.

What you get for CAD $50 — lifetime access

What you get

The 24-page Recovery Workbook (PDF)

A working companion with self-assessment, body-mapping exercises, reusable pre- and post-appointment templates, a provider evaluation rubric, four therapeutic "letters you may never send," and 15 recovery commitments. Print it, fill it in, photocopy the appointment pages.

The free companion handout

A 6-page printable summary of the core teaching — yours to keep and to share with the people who need to read it.

A woman with short blonde hair, wearing a sleeveless orange top and beige wide-legged pants, sits on a beige cushioned bench while writing in a notebook with a gold pen. She is in a room with light-colored walls, a large green plant on her left, and a wooden slatted wall and a framed art piece with a beige pattern on her right.

A clinical resource list

The reading, the therapeutic approaches, the patient advocacy organizations, and the research citations behind the work.

Lifetime access + free updates

When the page is updated, your access updates with it. Buy once.

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This is for you if:

- You have a chronic illness, chronic pain, dysautonomia, EDS, ME/CFS, Long COVID, POTS, MCAS, autoimmune, fibromyalgia, or another complex condition. - You have been told your symptoms are anxiety, your data is wrong, or your monitoring is excessive. - You leave appointments doubting yourself. - You have stopped tracking, preparing, or researching because a provider told you to. - You feel dread before medical appointments. - You want a structured, evidence-based way to recover the voice you have lost.

A woman with tattoos on her arm, sitting on a beige couch, reading a newspaper, with a white pillow behind her and a white blanket wrapped around her legs, in a living room with three framed black and white cloud landscapes on the wall above.

This is not the right fit if:

- You are looking for legal advice about a specific provider (this is therapeutic education, not legal counsel)

- You are in active medical or psychiatric crisis (please contact crisis services first)

- You are looking for a course that will tell you the medical system is fine (it is not, and this course will not pretend otherwise)

How It Works

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  • Instant access to the workbook PDF, and all five lessons.

  • The workbook is designed for slow days, hard days, and the days you can only read the introduction. Lifetime access means there is no rush

  • The toolkit pages are designed to be printed and reused before every significant medical visit.

Try It Today

Meet your instructor

✳

Meet your instructor ✳

Your in good hands with an Licensed Professional Counselor, and registered clinical counsellor (RCC) trained she's been called a cancer therapist, personal therapist, & Chronic Illness Therapist . in Vancouver BC

I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC, BCACC) in private practice at The Woods Counselling Co. in British Columbia. I sit on the Board of the Canadian Pain Society and co-chair their Interprofessional Special Interest Group. I am certified in Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP).

I also live with fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, hypothyroidism, trigeminal autonomic cephalalgia (a rare neurological pain condition), vascular migraine, and a cardiac issue still being worked up. I have had occipital nerve stimulator surgery. I know the rooms. I have been dismissed in them. I have kept my own data anyway.

The Medical Gaslighting Recovery Workbook is the resource I wish someone had handed me a decade ago. I built it for the patients in my practice — and for you.

ELYSIA BRONSON

Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC, BCACC)

Canadian Pain Society Board Member · Founder, The Woods Counselling Co.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • No. This is therapeutic education and self-guided recovery work. It is designed to support work with a therapist, not replace it. If you are not currently working with someone and find this material brings up significant distress, please consider finding a trauma-informed counsellor.

  • No. While women experience medical gaslighting at documented higher rates, this course is for anyone who has been dismissed in a medical setting — including men, non-binary, and trans patients. The work is universal; the bias patterns differ.

  • No. The course is self-paced and delivered online, available worldwide. Clinical 1:1 counselling at The Woods is restricted to specific Canadian provinces, but this course is not clinical care and has no geographic restrictions.

  • Forever. Lifetime access, free updates when the material is refreshed.

  • The Part Four provider evaluation rubric will help you decide whether to stay or leave a specific provider, and the appointment toolkit will help you advocate more clearly in the next visit. But the course is education, not a guarantee that any single provider will change.

  • No. Universal Pain Therapy is a six-module course covering pain neuroscience, emotion regulation, pacing, polyvagal regulation, and long-term resilience — a broader recovery program at $300 CAD. This Medical Gaslighting Recovery Workbook is a focused $50 workbook on one specific harm (medical dismissal) and one specific recovery path. Many UPT students start here.