Psychotherapist / Social Worker – Digestive Health

Blume Therapy & Wellness is a holistic, virtual psychotherapy clinic specializing in supporting individuals living with chronic illness, digestive disorders, autoimmune conditions, cancer, and other complex health experiences.

We are currently looking for a Registered Psychotherapist or Registered Social Worker with specialized knowledge of digestive health and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to join our team as an Independent Contractor.

This role would be an excellent fit for a clinician who not only understands the psychological impact of living with digestive illness professionally, but who also brings personal lived experience with IBD and a deep understanding of what it is like to navigate life with a chronic digestive condition.

About Our Approach

At Blume, we believe that people are more than their diagnoses. Our approach is holistic, trauma-informed, collaborative, and non-pathologizing. Rather than viewing clients through a lens of illness or disorder, we work to understand the whole person; including their body, nervous system, relationships, identity, values, environment, and lived experience.

We recognize that living with IBD and digestive illness can affect virtually every area of life. Clients may be navigating uncertainty, grief, changes in identity, medical trauma, food-related anxiety, body image concerns, relationship challenges, work and social limitations, or the emotional exhaustion that can come with managing a chronic condition.

Our role is not to tell clients how they should feel about their illness or to reduce their experiences to anxiety or psychological symptoms. Instead, we support clients in developing a healthier relationship with their bodies, processing difficult experiences, reconnecting with their values, and building a meaningful life alongside chronic illness.

The Role The successful candidate will provide virtual psychotherapy to clients experiencing a range of digestive health concerns, with a particular focus on IBD, IBS, and other DGBIs.

You will work with clients experiencing both the psychological and practical impacts of digestive illness, including:





- Anxiety and uncertainty related to symptoms, flare-ups, and disease progression
- Medical trauma and difficult healthcare experiences
- Grief and loss related to changes in health, identity, or functioning
- Adjustment to diagnosis and chronic illness
- Fear and avoidance surrounding food, eating, travel, social situations, or leaving the home
- Body image and changes in relationship with the body
- Relationship and intimacy challenges
- Work, school, and social impacts of chronic illness
- Health anxiety and difficulty tolerating uncertainty
- Nervous system dysregulation and chronic stress
- Identity disruption and loss of a previous sense of self
- Values-based living and rebuilding a meaningful life alongside illness

We are looking for someone who:

- Is a Registered Psychotherapist (RP), Registered Social Worker (RSW), or equivalent regulated mental health professional in good standing with their regulatory college
- Has clinical experience working with IBD and/or digestive health
- Has lived experience with IBD and can thoughtfully integrate this understanding into their clinical work while maintaining appropriate professional boundaries
- Has a strong understanding of the gut-brain connection and the complex relationship between physical and psychological health
- Takes a non-pathologizing, person-centred approach to care
- Is comfortable working with chronic illness, medical trauma, grief, uncertainty, and identity disruption
- Values working collaboratively with clients rather than positioning themselves as the expert on the client's experience
- Is compassionate, curious, and comfortable sitting with complexity
- Has an interest in mind-body approaches, nervous system regulation, health psychology, or psychogastroenterology




- Is comfortable providing virtual psychotherapy
- Is able to work independently while also being a collaborative member of a growing clinical team

Additional training or experience in gut-directed hypnotherapy, CBT, ACT, trauma-informed therapy, somatic approaches, mindfulness, or other mind-body modalities would be considered an asset.

What We Offer

- A fully virtual clinical practice using Jane
- The prospect to specialize in an area of mental health care that is still significantly underserved
- A collaborative team environment with clinicians who understand chronic illness and complex health experiences
- Clinical autonomy and flexibility
- The opportunity to build a specialized caseload focused on digestive health
- Opportunities for professional development and collaboration as Blume continues to expand its work in chronic illness and gut-brain health
- Administrative and practice support so you can focus on providing excellent clinical care
- The opportunity to contribute to a clinic that is actively working to change the way mental health is approached within chronic illness care

This is an independent contractor position. Clinicians maintain autonomy over their clinical practice while working within Blume's overall values, standards of care, and scope of practice.

Caseload, availability, and scheduling can be discussed based on the clinician's preferences and the needs of the practice.

Above all, we're looking for someone who gets it. Someone who understands that living with IBD is about far more than managing symptoms. Someone who recognizes the grief, uncertainty, frustration, resilience, and identity shifts that can accompany chronic illness, and who can sit alongside clients in that experience without trying to fix, minimize, or pathologize it.

If you have both professional expertise and personal lived experience with IBD, and you're passionate about providing compassionate, holistic care to people living with digestive illness, we'd love to hear from you.

Send your cover letter and resume detailing your professional and lived experiences to [email protected]

📌 Psychotherapist/Social Worker (Digestive Illness) (Canada)
🏢 Blume Therapy and Wellness
📍 Canada