Patients suffering from chronic pain incur a direct cost to their psychological, social, financial well being. Chronic pain can only be mitigated to a point by pharmacology but a growing body of research focuses on the therapeutic tools most effective at managing that residual pain. What can not be removed needs to be managed for a better patient outcome.
Pain management does not directly attempt to manage the pain, as a perceived emotion, rather to arm the patient with a different outlook about their pain. To not compound their direct pain with indirect pain (shame, depression, resentment, etc.)
Types of chronic pain management therapies.
This fast growing field is governed by four key types of therapies, each with different goals and timeframes.
- CBT – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
- Meditation & Mindfulness based therapies.
- Acceptance & Commitment therapies (ACT).
- Operant type therapy.
ACT is an offshoot of CBT focusing on owning emotions and committing the personal resources to move on from trauma, escape predictable cycles, take better decisions and stick to them. Operant type therapies focus on associating a punishment or rewards to specific behavior or sub-sets of behaviors to gradually change how we process pain mentally. Meditation and Mindfulness are widely proven to provide patients with a sense of “margin” or “gap” between their thoughts, their pain, and their reaction. You are not your thoughts, and meditation helps acquiring that inner peace and safety that can lower the stressor of pain.
Symptoms & Treatments
- Personalised diagnostic: Pain history and currency, trauma, pain as a narrative, pain as a social, financial, existential cost.
- Symptoms and Indications: Impact of pain on social, financial, existential, occupational functioning. Pain as depression/anxiety. Debilitating pain, pain episodes, pain avoidance.
- Resources & Related: Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Operant therapies, processing pain, pain avoidance.