We’re glad you’re here. It’s not easy finding a therapist in 2025, especially one who understands the complexity of life with a chronic medical illness. We are a small group of psychologists and clinical social workers who do just that, work exclusively with folks with chronic medical illness. We have extensive experience working in GI psychology, sometimes called gastro-psychology or brain-gut behavioral therapy. However, we also help people with other chronic medical conditions like autoimmune diseases, cancers, and long COVID. We fully understand how stressful living with any chronic symptoms can be, and that medical trauma is real and under-recognized. We also understand how stressful our healthcare system is, and that your symptoms are absolutely NOT “all in your head” or because you “can’t manage your stress.”
Specializing in the Complexities of Chronic Digestive Diseases
We are perfectly happy to talk to you about poop. Our clinicians are experts in treating people living with chronic digestive conditions like Crohn’s disease, reflux, or chronic abdominal pain. We offer gut-directed hypnotherapy, as well as other evidence-based brain-gut behavioral therapies such as CBT, ACT, and mindfulness based stress reduction.
As you can imagine, demand for these services is very high. We do our best to get new patients in quickly, but there can be a wait to be seen. Which we know isn’t ideal or what you want to hear. Dr. Taft, who runs the place, is very mindful of preventing burnout in our team, so we limit how many people are seen by each clinician. Otherwise, nobody wins. We appreciate your understanding. Please look through our website to learn more about us, our approach to your care, how billing and insurance works, and then please reach out to us to set up a consultation. We look forward to meeting with you, whether it’s in our office, via tele-health, or a hybrid of the two!
The OPBMed team has helped hundreds of adults and children living with a chronic medical illness. We focus on your whole lived experience including how your condition affects your emotions and daily life, navigating the healthcare system, coping with anxiety or depression, and living in a meaningful, value-based way.
When you or someone close to you is diagnosed with a chronic illness, many challenges can occur beyond the physical symptoms being experienced. Some describe it like riding a roller coaster, but we like to think of it as hiking in the mountains. There are the same ups and downs, but you have more strength and control over things than you may realize.
Taking care of your mental well-being is equally as important as taking care of your physical well-being. Unfortunately in today’s medical world, there often isn’t time to address the social and mental effects of living with a chronic illness every day. This is where meeting with one of our specialists can be invaluable. We offer behavioral medicine therapies, such as CBT for IBS or medical hypnotherapy for chronic migraine, that can treat your illness symptoms, either to complement your medical treatment or fill in where medical treatments are lacking.
We often help people living with:
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD – Crohn’s, UC, Indeterminate IBD)
EoE and other EGIDs
GERD and reflux
Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction
(Called “functional” GI disorders in the past)
Gastroparesis
Celiac disease
Cyclical vomiting
Rumination syndrome
Chronic migraine
Autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and MS
Insomnia and other sleep issues
POTS and dysautonomia
Cancer
Long COVID
Rare and poorly understood medical illnesses
While we are based in Illinois, we offer telehealth services to people who live in a state that participates in the PsyPact Interstate Jurisdiction Compact and are shaded in the darker blue on this map.
As of July 2025, all states and territories participate EXCEPT for:
Alaska, California, Guam, Hawaii*, Iowa*, Louisiana, Massachusetts*, New Mexico, New York*, Oregon, Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands.
Therefore if you live in one of these places, we cannot see you as of right now. Please check the official map periodically as states are added to the list.
* Has pending legislation to participate in PsyPact (fingers crossed!)