Therapy for Stress-Related Symptoms in Richmond, VA
Real symptoms. Normal tests. Minimal explanations.
When your symptoms don’t have clear medical answers
If you’re dealing with ongoing physical symptoms like dizziness, nausea, fatigue, gastrointestinal distress, itching, shortness of breath, brain fog, or sensory sensitivity, and medical tests keep coming back “normal,” stress symptoms, often called neuroplastic symptoms, may be at play. Many people with stress symptoms spend months or years searching for answers, feeling confused, dismissed, or worried about what their symptoms mean.
What are stress-related (neuroplastic) symptoms?
Stress-related symptoms are real, physical experiences that arise from patterns in the brain and nervous system rather than structural disease. These symptoms are not imagined, exaggerated, or “all in your head.” Instead, they reflect a nervous system that has learned to stay on high alert, often after stress, illness, injury, or prolonged uncertainty about health. People who are thoughtful, conscientious, and highly attuned to their health often develop these symptoms.
How do I know if my symptoms are due to stress and not something else?
Many people worry that considering a neuroplastic explanation means something serious is being missed. In reality, symptoms associated with physical stress often follow recognizable patterns and have similar characteristics. Frequently, medical evaluations have ruled out medical explanations for these symptoms.
You don’t need to check every box below for this framework to be helpful. Instead, the signs below may suggest that your symptoms are influenced by how your brain and nervous system process threat, safety, and attention.
Common Characteristics of Stress-Related Symptoms:
How does therapy help stress symptoms?
Treatment for stress/neuroplastic symptoms focuses on helping the nervous system relearn safety and flexibility. Through evidence-based approaches like pacing, mindfulness, grounding techniques, and healthy emotional expression, the nervous system can recalibrate, helping reduce the intensity of these sensations, increasing trust with the body, and improving daily functioning.
Virginia Health and Medical Psychology specializes in treatments such as Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) which have been tested and shown to be effective for stress-related symptoms. These treatments have shown better outcomes for people with chronic pain or symptoms beyond traditional approaches, like CBT.
What does therapy look like?
Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT)
Pain Reprocessing Therapy is a neuroscience-based approach for chronic and neuroplastic symptoms. It works from the understanding that when the brain learns to interpret certain signals as dangerous, it can continue producing very real pain or physical symptoms even after tissues have healed or when no clear medical cause is found.
PRT helps retrain the brain’s danger alarm system. Instead of trying to “push through” or fight symptoms, we gently shift how you relate to sensations, fear, and attention. Through education about how pain works, somatic awareness, and new experiences of safety in the body, the brain can relearn that these sensations are not a threat, which often leads to reduced symptoms and less fear around them.
This approach is especially helpful for people with persistent pain, fatigue, dizziness, GI issues, and other chronic symptoms that feel confusing, or unpredictable.
Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET)
Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy focuses on the connection between stress, emotions, life experiences, and physical symptoms. Research shows that the nervous system can stay in a heightened state of threat when emotions like anger, grief, guilt, or fear have been suppressed, minimized, or never fully processed.
EAET helps you safely access, understand, and express emotions that may have been pushed aside in order to cope or function. This isn’t about venting, it’s about helping your nervous system process unresolved emotional experiences so it no longer has to carry them through the body.
This work can reduce stress-related symptoms, improve emotional clarity, and help you feel more authentic, empowered, and connected in your life and relationships.
You don’t have to fully understand your symptoms or how therapy can help to start getting support. If this approach resonates with you, reach out for a free consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No! These symptoms are real, physical, and often intense or disabling. They are happening in the body, but they are being generated or amplified by the brain and nervous system. The same way stress can cause a racing heart, sweating, or stomach upset. Brain-generated does not mean imagined.
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Standard medical tests are designed to look for disease, injury, or structural problems. Neuroplastic /stress symptoms come from changes in how the brain is processing signals, not from tissue damage. That’s why scans and labs can be normal while symptoms are still very real.
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Yes. The nervous system constantly tracks safety and threat. Ongoing stress, emotional strain, past medical events, or periods of overwhelm can teach the brain to stay in “danger mode.” When that happens, the body can produce symptoms such as pain, GI issues, dizziness, fatigue, tingling, and more, even without ongoing injury.
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Neuroplastic (brain–body) patterns can show up in many different ways. These symptoms are real and physical, but are often driven by nervous system sensitization rather than ongoing tissue damage.
Common examples include:
Chronic pain (back pain, neck pain, joint pain, pelvic pain)
Migraines or chronic headaches
Fibromyalgia-type widespread pain
Irritable bowel symptoms (abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation)
Chronic fatigue or post-viral fatigue patterns
Dizziness, lightheadedness, or “off-balance” sensations
Tinnitus (ringing in the ears)
Burning, tingling, or nerve-like sensations without clear nerve injury
Functional neurological symptoms (non-epileptic seizures, limb weakness, tremors)
Bladder pain or urgency without infection
Jaw pain or TMJ symptoms
Having a symptom on this list does not mean it’s automatically neuroplastic. Medical evaluation is important to rule out structural or disease-related causes. But when testing is reassuring and symptoms persist, a nervous system / brain-based approach can be a powerful part of recovery.
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Something is wrong, your nervous system is stuck in a protective, sensitized state. The good news is that this state is changeable. Because the brain learned this pattern, it can also unlearn it.
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Yes. While we can’t guarantee specific outcomes, many people have gone through treatment with a large degree of symptom reduction. Treatment focuses on calming the nervous system, changing fear and threat responses to symptoms, and addressing emotional and stress-related factors that keep the system activated. As the brain learns that the body is safe, symptom intensity and frequency can decrease.
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Many people with neuroplastic symptoms describe themselves as high-functioning, responsible, and used to pushing through. The nervous system can carry stress even when you’re not consciously feeling anxious. Therapy helps you notice and shift patterns your body has been holding.