Do you need a counsellor with proven expertise and lived experience?
Making a Better Quality of Life
Living with a chronic illness makes life harder – especially if doctors and family and friends don’t understand.
I do understand.
I have been living with HIV since 1998, but that only partially prepared me for living with MEcfs (since 2012).
My medical care experiences between HIV and MEcfs could not be more traumatically stark.
With HIV the standard of care is life saving medications — with MEcfs the standard of medical care often is denial, dismissal and gaslighting.
Unfortunately, this can also be our experience with other health professionals like physical therapists, counselors and psychologists.
(Pic: Life before MEcfs: I loved pushing my body hard and racing triathlons)
Scott Simpson: Counselor - Making Life Better
I have over 15 years counselling people living chronic illnesses (link to CV and papers) and training social service, therapists and social workers, currently through the Gay Counseling Training Hub.
Beyond my honed counseling and training skills, the greatest value I contribute is my lived experiences with multiple chronic illnesses and navigating a frustrating medical system that is not designed to support people with complex chronic illnesses.
(Pic: Life before MEcfs: finishing Ironman Triathlon Louisville)
Following my passions
Because I had access to life saving HIV medications, I had a second chance at life.
Since then I have devoted my personal life and professional career to support people and communities marginalized by the medical system:
Advocate for AIDS medications for Malawians (with NGO Dignitas International)
Counselor and counseling researcher for people living with HIV (with the AIDS Committee of Toronto)
Co-founder of MEcfs advocacy non-profit Millions Missing Canada
Patient safety advocate and founding member of Patients for Patient Safety Canada
Podcast host Medical Error Interviews
Executive Committee member of the Interdisciplinary Canadian Collaborative Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ICanCME) Research Network.
About Remedies Counseling
What to expect: safe, confidential, empathic
Sometimes it is hard to deal with the not so good things that happen in life.
Figuring out how to deal with these problems is the challenge, and that is where my expertise can help you.
Changing our lives is a process:
- You are the expert on content (your desires, abilities, reasons, needs)
- I am the expert on the process (tools, strategies, supports, rewards - yes rewards!)
Together, we can work so you have:
- strategies around the not so good things in life
- tools and supports to deal with the challenges to change
- goals and next steps to make your hopes a reality
What do you want to change in your life?
FAQs Remedies Counseling
Remedies Online Counselling services
Person to person online counseling using video chat to help you with the challenges you are experiencing so you have a better quality of life.
About Scott Simpson: Professional and Lived Experience
From socially anxious obese addict, sick with HIV in a dead end job to...
Medal winning triathlete, patient advocate and entrepreneur. I changed my physical, emotional, social and career life, and I can help you make the changes you want.
Gaining a psychology degree and career counseling diploma, I worked with Ryerson University to research and provide the counseling style of motivational interviewing to the research participants, and have co-authored published counseling research papers in PLOSone and Cognitive and Behavioral Practice.
I also train counsellors in the motivational interviewing (MI) style, and work with individuals to help them achieve their goals.
About Motivational Interviewing
Many of us have parts of our lives we would like to make changes. Maybe you want to manage your finances better, or hope to make healthy improvements in your lifestyle, like diet and exercise.
Perhaps you are struggling with an addiction or substance use disorder. Does hoarding or gambling control your life and keep you from doing the things you want to do?
Whether you're looking to make a small change or to turn your life around, Motivational Interviewing (MI) may help set you on the right path even when other counseling techniques have failed.
Confidentiality
Your trust and confidentiality is important to me and your information will be kept securely protected. I do not share my mailing list.
Podcast: Medical Error Interviews
Hearing from clients so many stories of medical error and the negative impact they had, prompted me to start the Remedies Podcast: Medical Error Interviews - Secrets, Stories and Solutions.
Contact me
Questions or comments? Send me an email at RemediesOnlineCounseling@gmail.com
About Scott Simpson
How I became an expert on making successful changes
I became an expert on how to plan for change, and how to respond to the unwanted or unexpected, by using the processes and tools I will support you with.
I was hard partying, care free and directionless, living a selfish life. I was an obese, pack a day smoker, heavy drinker in a dead end job and didn’t think beyond the moment, or myself.
My first big unwanted change was being diagnosed with HIV. My physical health declined. I became isolated, depressed and socially anxious. I had to learn to deal with my guilt, anger, shame and fear.
Because of access to life saving HIV medications, I had a second chance at life. I decided it - and myself - were going to be much different. I intentionally changed physical, emotional, social and cognitive aspects of myself.
I became an international patient advocate and worked with the medical humanitarian organization Dignitas International to bring HIV medications to people living in the Zomba District in Malawi, Africa.
I taught myself to swim, trained for triathlons, was slow but got fast and qualified for the national triathlon team, representing Canada 3 times at the triathlon world champs. I was the first person living with HIV to compete at the triathlon world championships.
I earned a college diploma in career counseling and a university degree in psychology. For a decade I worked on a community based research project with Ryerson University, researching a counseling program for people living with HIV.
I was doing meaningful work in the community, following my triathlon passions and loving my second life. All was good: I was healthy and happy.
And then I got sick again, with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) - literally means muscle pain with inflammation of the brain and spinal cord.
I became quite sick and disabled, mostly homebound, and am only able to walk for 15 minutes slowly on flat ground. I grieved for my losses: physical, financial, social and especially my health.
But I was not without hope. I had learned how to make change happen, and how to deal with unwanted change.
I co-founded the non-profit Millions Missing Canada to advocate for access to health care for Canadians with ME. I volunteer with Health Quality Ontario to decrease medical error and increase patient safety, and started a podcast Remedies: Medical Error Interviews as part of my Remedies Online Counseling business.
And now I am sharing what I have learned by setting and achieving goals, and by adjusting to unwanted and unexpected change, with you.
I'll be honest and transparent: I want to help you achieve your goals because your success, is my success.
Change is possible because change is a process.