It’s hard work researching teamwork

After writing about teams and models and the distinct possibility of talking past each other, I had a very quick search for a paper on teamwork and models this morning, and came across this one by a group of Canadian researchers. It is, like many of these pieces of research into the messy and [...]

ACT – some evidence for acceptance & commitment therapy in chronic pain

For a relatively young therapy, ACT has a lot of research to support its use in chronic pain. A very quick search through PsychInfo located 51 studies since 2002 with the keyword ‘acceptance’, and the majority of these (I didn’t count them up!) were related to ACT studies.
I’m not intending to run through a [...]

Goals or actions?

Goals seem to work best when they’re important to the person, and the person has sufficient confidence that they’re going to be achieved. But…’there is many a slip betwixt cup and lip’ – while the goal might be set, actually getting there depends on many things. I wonder whether we can inadvertently slip up when [...]

Collaborating with our patients

Have you noticed how some of the literature on pain management seems to distance the therapist from the patient as if the therapist is the ‘expert’?
I’m not sure where this started – perhaps with the behavioural approach where reinforcing well behaviour is carried out alongside ignoring or not responding to sickness or pain behaviour. [...]

Values: what is important to you?

Back from holiday, feeling somewhat refreshed, I have been pondering the idea of values. One of my original purposes for setting up this blog was to convey the idea that healthy living, whether because of a health problem or not, is about living a life that allows for the expression of what is important [...]

Reflections on ACT case formulation in chronic pain

I’ve been reviewing ACT and contextual cognitive behavioural therapy in chronic pain management over the past year or so, and it’s really interesting reflecting on the different way in which I see people after being exposed to the ACT approach.
Just to recap, some of the main precepts of ACT and CCBT are:

people’s attempts to control [...]

Symptoms of unknown origin: A medical odyssey

Having just a little more time to myself over the holidays has meant I’ve been able to read more.  Not that I EVER stop reading, but I did have some time to really read some great books, one of which is a slim book by the title of my heading above.  It’s written by Dr [...]

Doing, being, and creating a myth

A couple of things have drawn my thoughts to this topic: the first is a post on the Salford University Occupational Therapy Blog called ‘Create your own destiny’ in which they ask how educational institutions should prepare new graduate occupational therapists for the Brave New World of health care in which we work. They suggest [...]

Coping skills and goals – living a valued life

After musing about the previous two posts on coping and motivation (this is the second one), today I want to complete the set and think about how we as treatment providers might view the range of coping skills a person uses.
Van Damme, Crombez & Eccleston (2008) point out that ‘behaviour will emerge to be adaptive [...]

Count your blessings and focus on the positive

I just had to record this reflection on my last session with a wonderful client who has been struggling with chronic pain, anxiety and not feeling at all confident that she can take action.
I’ve been following a different tack with her from usual, and instead of working hard on modifying thoughts and beliefs, I’ve been [...]