Finding Purpose Through Pain: Dr. Brunkow’s Approach to Health Psychology
At Hanover CBT, Dr. Brunkow believes that healing begins not in the absence of pain, but in the courage to meet one’s pain with compassion, inquiry, and meaning.
The Biopsychosocial Lens
Dr. Brunkow practices through a biopsychosocial lens, which explores how biological, psychological, and social factors interact to shape our health and healing. Her work aims to help clients build nonjudgmental, compassionate relationships with their lived experiences, sensations, and emotions.
Her evidence-based, collaborative approach first supports clients with identifying the direction they’d like to move toward. She incorporates Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and other empirically-supported treatments to guide clients toward understanding and identifying the skills to make meaningful changes in those chosen directions.
Educating clients about the neuroscience of pain helps clients reclaim agency in their experiences. Alye helps clients understand how the brain’s ability to change can work both for and against them. She explains that accepting pain and being present with the experience can help us break out of our brains’ predictable cycles of pain and suffering.
Mindfulness in Motion
Mindfulness plays a central role in Alye’s practice. One of her favorite strategies is something she affectionately calls “car therapy.” It’s a brief, intentional pause built into a normal daily transition, guided by the acronym SLOW:
Stop—pause
Listen—to your body
Open—stretch and breathe
What—ask, what do I need?
“Once after a tough day at work, I realized how much energy and tension I was carrying,” she recalls. “I stopped, took a few deep breaths, heard my body telling me, ‘I need to yell,’ and screamed in my car, which helped me feel a lot better.”
Alye reminds us how these small, mindful check-ins can interrupt the brain’s predictable cycles of pain and suffering, helping us regain control and restore balance in body and mind.
Collaboration and Community
Dr. Brunkow’s work extends beyond the therapy room. At Hanover CBT, she continues her multidisciplinary approach working closely with prescribers, evaluators, and referring providers to ensure treatment plans are informed, connected, and adaptive.
Originally from Wisconsin, Alye appreciates the Upper Valley’s strong sense of community and collective care expressed through advocacy, local government, and civic engagement. “It’s lovely to know that we live in such a strong community,” she reflects. “Helping people find and access those supports is an important part of this work.”
Honoring the Whole Person
Through health psychology, Dr. Brunkow helps clients repair their relationship with their bodies and redefine what it means to live well. Healing doesn’t mean erasing pain; it means finding purpose, flexibility, and compassion within it.
At Hanover CBT, we are committed to collaboration, inclusivity, and evidence-based care that respects the complexity of each person’s life and experience. We see health as deeply intertwined with identity and agency. Health psychology helps us carry out our mission by:
Supporting behavior changes that align with clients’ values and individual needs
Offering space to process the emotional impact of medical and physical experiences
Promoting self-compassion and bodily trust in the face of health-related stigma, trauma, or shame
Building bridges between psychological care and medical treatment through collaboration with integrated healthcare teams
Health psychology expands our capacity to provide comprehensive, human-centered care that honors the complexity of healing.
Read More about Dr. Brunkow’s work or schedule an intake appointment to begin your own journey toward whole-person healing.
