If you find it hard to slow down…

Self regulation is something we learn to do to achieve goals - it’s all about establishing what the goal is, find out how close we are to the goal, the gap between where we are and where we want to be, and what we need to do to get there. This is a reasonably [...]

Why CBT? How do patients feel about it?

There are many different therapies out there - why is CBT (or one of the newer variants) the Chosen One?
I gave a few reasons yesterday -
* that people are capable of change,
* can accept self responsibility for their actions,
* that what we think and believe about a situation can affect our emotions and responses, [...]

Learning to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’

If ever there was an over-used quote from a pop-psychology book the ‘feel the fear’ quote has to be a prime contender! However, in exposure therapy for kinesiophobia, this is exactly what we are doing. If we don’t activate the feeling of anxiety just a teeny tiny bit, then we are not going [...]

Explaining mindfulness - doing and being

Today I worked with a person who is very analytic, and finds it quite difficult to feel emotions or experience sensations without thinking about them. He has persistent pain that he calls ‘frustrating’ or ‘unbearable’ - emotions that for me are quite poles apart!
His overall anxiety levels are quite high, and at one time [...]

Sleep, glorious sleep - ii

In the previous post, I described some of the first areas to consider in assessing sleep problems in pain management, and discussed some simple strategies to consider. This post will complete the assessment and management approaches, and some resources you can use.
Once you have assessed sleep onset, sleep duration and quality should be assessed. [...]

Sleep, glorious sleep

If you’ve had a new baby in your house, or been jet-lagged, worked shiftwork, or been worrying about a new job, you’ve probably had some time when your sleep pattern has really got out of sync. The feeling of not having had enough sleep is well-known to throw some of us right into depression, [...]

Relaxation training

For a very brief introduction to relaxation, click through to my Coping Skills section.
Relaxation training is a very popular component of pain management. By itself, relaxation can be an enjoyable experience, but when used as a way to extend activity and help a person maintain control, it becomes a very potent tool. It’s [...]

Biofeedback or - things that go ‘beep’!

Biofeedback is an approach to revealing the inner states of human functioning so that people can develop control. In pain management it can take many different forms from surface electro-myography (sEMG), skin conductance (SC), blood volume pulsimetry (BVP), respiration rate, and heart rate variability. It can even be as simple as readings on two scales [...]

News!

New clinical guideline for low-back pain from PhysOrg.com
A summary of evidence on the diagnosis and treatment of low-back pain has prompted the American Pain Society (ASP) and the American College of Physicians (ACP) to issue a new treatment guideline. The guideline is based on a thorough analysis of published research conducted by investigators at [...]