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  • Healthskills is a blog for health providers who want to read about research related to self managing chronic pain.
    What you’ll find here over time:

    * cognitive behavioural therapy
    * chronic pain management
    * relaxation
    * motivation
    * values-based therapy
    * research
    * psychology
    * interdisciplinary teams
    * using exposure therapy

    Head to my 'About', page for more information about who I am and what this blog is based on.

    This week's photograph: Road damage: Christchurch Earthquake 4 September 2010
    All photographs (c)Adiemus 2010

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Temporary downtime: Christchurch earthquake aftermath

We’re fine after the earthquake, but things are not back to normal in Christchurch – to give visitors an idea of the damage, here are a couple of shots I took on Saturday morning. I was having a week off work anyway, which is well-timed given the circumstances, and I’ll blog occasionally over this time. … Read more

Friday Funnies

I’m not running out of ideas, just running out of time, so today’s FF’s are not original.  If anyone is the copyright owner of these and doesn’t want them on here, please let me know – they’ve arrived (usually) via someone else’s email! Working in a sometimes management-heavy workplace I wonder if there is a … Read more

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Measuring changes during graded exposure & acceptance treatment

I have been pondering about the best way to monitor ‘Matt’s progress during graded exposure therapy for his avoidance of activities involving back movement. I introduced you to Matt yesterday. He’s a ‘man’s man’, a real bloke who, for the past four years since he had surgery for a prolapsed disc, has avoided things like … Read more

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Graded exposure in the real world

Well, not exactly the real world – yet – just the clinic. A man I’m working with is very worried about his back.  Some years ago he had a discectomy and his surgeon told him he needed to be ‘very careful’ with his back – and so he has.  No bending, twisting, lifting for this … Read more

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Exposure in vivo for kinesiophobia

Sometimes, even with the best practice, treatment doesn’t go the way you expect it to. Graded exposure, using a phobia treatment model, can be one of those amazingly quick methods – or it can be a long-haul challenge. This paper by Flink, Boersma and Linton, just published in European Journal of Pain identifies one of … Read more

Friday Funnies!

It’s Friday here in Christchurch – only a few more jobs to do and then it’s gin and tonic time! I could not resist this – so my apologies to anyone who groans as a result. It’s not my fault I was raised with one of the world’s worst punsters… And I know, this is … Read more

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On being both a scientist and a human

In some circles there is a slightly strange belief that it is not possible to both be a scientist and be empathic, warm and value the ‘human touch’.  I beg to disagree, and in this post I hope to put forward some of my thoughts about how these two ‘ways of being’ are not mutually … Read more

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Drawing pain

The pain drawing has to be one of the more ubiquitous assessment tools around. There are many versions of outlines of naked bodies on which a person can scribble, colour, and write to indicate to treatment providers exactly where they feel their pain, and to a certain extent, some of the sensory features of that … Read more

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Information is to behaviour change as spaghetti is to a brick

I’m a great fan of books like ‘Explain Pain’. This delightful publication by David Butler and Lorimer Moseley gives accurate information about pain, particularly chronic pain, in an accessible format for both patients and clinicians, and I’ve used it often with people I’m seeing. I’m also a fan of helping people to understand what we … Read more

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Who drops out of CBT for chronic pain?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone we saw was ready for self management and committed to putting everything in place? Wouldn’t it be even better if we could tell who was and who wasn’t going to drop out? Then we could focus treatment on people who were ready for treatment, and help those who are … Read more