🤔 psychosomatic pain

there is a family of theories that purport that some chronic pain is due to emotional avoidance
- ie. instead of resolving an emotional trauma, the mind prefers to focus on and invent or magnify a pain
underlying reasoning may be flawed, but, the effectiveness of treatments seems promising
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8476063/
summary of treatment approach
- https://cdn-links.lww.com/permalink/pr9/a/pr920210902donninopainreports-d-21-0050sdc1.pdf
  - (p 3-4)
- part 1: psychophysiological pain education
  - theory: one's symptoms are part of a mind-body syndrome, as opposed to purely of physical cause
  - interventions:
    - learn about above theory
    - explore history of pain (trauma/stressors near time of onset)
    - try to identify patterns in triggers that magnify pain
    - identify discrepancies in pain experience (ex. always when sitting, but not when sitting and knitting)
- part 2: desensitizing and returning to physical activity
  - theory: chronic pain is a conditioned response to a physical trigger, develop fear of those triggers
  - interventions:
    - learn about above theory
    - visual motor imagery
      - imagine trigger that causes pain, which often causes pain
      - notice that pain is triggered just through imagination
      - repeatedly visualize, until imagination-triggered pain wanes
    - gradually undertake activities that trigger pain
- part 3: emotional expression
  - theory: chronic pain is manifestation of unexpressed negative affective states
  - interventions:
    - learn about above theory
    - self-reflection
    - small group discussion
    - journal writing, letters-of-forgiveness, gratitude lists
- part 4: stress reduction
  - intervention:
    - Zinn's MBSR - Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programme
      - present moment awareness via meditation

2024-02-10

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🤔 psychosomatic pain

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