Natalie Crittendon

Natalie is a psychosocial occupational therapist and spent over a decade providing community-based services. Her work explores skill-building in the face of suffering. This often focuses on developing the skills of receiving love and care, recognizing and expressing wants and needs, identifying as the expert of your own experience, and expanding emotional awareness. She also engages with caregivers as a means to decrease a sense of isolation and promote healthy caregiving. Natalie became interested in palliative care due to her own experience of seeking holistic, patient-centered, communicative care while living with a serious, chronic disease.

Topics, Expertise and Experience

  • Chronic Pain

  • Congenital Heart Disease and Heart Disease

  • Experiences of Trauma and Medical Trauma

  • Multiple Sclerosis

  • Caregiver Support

  • Support for Children, Any Age

  • Navigating Relationship Roles being in a role you don’t want to be in

  • Orthopedic Issues

  • Early Childhood Experiences with the Medical System

  • Loss of a parent at any age

  • Living with Treatments, i.e. Chemotherapy and Radiation

Types of Support

  • Modification of Meaningful Activities vs. Returning to “Normal”

  • Understanding the Responses of the Nervous System

  • Naming and Exploring Aspects of Race when Navigating Healthcare

  • Understanding Cultural Implications of the Healthcare System

  • New and Re-framed Perspective Creation

  • Witnessing the Experience of the Individual

  • Allowing Individuals to be the Expert of their Experience

  • Identification of Strengths and Needs

  • Difficult Conversation Planning

  • Help with Task Management and Execution

  • Unconventional Family Formations and Dynamics

Who should work with Natalie?

  • Individuals living with illness

  • Caregivers for adult children

  • Caregivers for spouses

  • Care team and families

  • Young adults navigating illness or caregiving

  • Healthcare providers in need of peer support

  • Queer folx