A model of executive functioning and stress regulation

I’m a visual kind of girl, I need to see a diagram to help me conceptualise how the things I’ve been writing about recently all fit together. I’ve been looking at the various aspects of self regulation, emotions and executive functions and how this affects and is affected by stressors, of which chronic pain [...]

Going with the flow: emotion regulation and coping

I’m in two minds about attempting to regulate emotions. From ACT, and in particular, mindfulness, I’m learning that trying to control emotions and thoughts is darned near impossible – and unhelpful. From the research on the effect of pain on emotions and subsequently on self regulation, goals and coping, it seems that pain strongly [...]

Self regulation – what it is and what to do

So, if self regulation is about exerting control over thoughts, feelings, actions and physiology, how does it work?
When I skipped through some Google references last night (o font of all knowledge!) I found a good number of sites referring to self regulation and children – but not nearly as many relating to adults, or the [...]

It was a piece of cake! Hypnosis for sleep and tummy pain

After briefly looking at hypnosis yesterday, I found this lovely case study written by Leora Kuttner of an 11 year old girl with problems going off to sleep, including tummy pain and anxiety.
The girl had been through CBT, and introduced to the idea that she had a ‘worry bug’, and that the way to rid [...]

Hypnosis for chronic pain management: How it works maybe?

There are plenty of people who look at me as if I’m stepping right into woowoo when I start to talk about hypnosis for managing chronic pain. I’m happy to say that science has provided some good evidence that not only does hypnosis have a neurophysiological basis, but it also has some good effect.
What [...]

Feeling the pain: distraction/relaxation or exposure

It’s not the pain, it’s the judgement of the pain that makes it so distressing – or at least, that’s how the cognitive behavioural model of pain views our experience of pain. As a result, most pain management therapies working to help people manage when their pain can’t be removed involves reviewing how people [...]

Accepting low back pain: Is it related to a good quality of life?

The purpose of pain management is, in the end, of no earthly use if it doesn’t change a person’s quality of life. It’s fine to maybe reduce pain intensity (remembering that most pain reduction approaches seem to reduce pain by around 10 – 40%), and it’s great to improve function – but unless the [...]

Acceptance in chronic pain

It’s a truism that no-one really wants to have pain (and if they do, we probably need to ‘talk’!).  Accepting pain may be equated with ‘giving up hope’ or ‘giving in’ – perhaps acceptance is thought to be about resignation rather than acknowledgement.  In any event, very few of the people I work with seem [...]

Coping: what is it?

Some of you will know I’ve been striving to write my PhD proposal lately, ending up with loads more words than actually necessary! However, as part of it I’ve been reviewing some of the material I’ve collected over time on coping.
Coping is one of those difficult words – one we all know, but don’t [...]

Some awesome CBT worksheets and resources

If you’re like me, you probably want to be able to put your hands on some easy-to-use worksheets for use with clients.  While I’m happy to make up my own, it’s nice to find some resources on the web – so thanks to therapyworksheets I’m linking to some of the worksheets I like from this [...]