The Pain +Therapy Clinic

12/09/2024

16/08/2024

22/07/2024

If you have been living with pain for over 6 months and a serious cause has been ruled out, there is a good chance that the pain is neuroplastic.

This means that the pain is due to altered processing of normal messaging within the nervous system, so a software rather than a hardware problem.

This also means that your pain is 100% real and that it is possible for it to improve and even resolve.

Using a combination of clinically proven techniques including Pain Reprocessing Therapy, Emotional Awareness & Expression Therapy, Graded exposure and Movement, I can help you move on from persistent pain.

Common conditions that can be helped include

Chronic back or neck pain

IBS

Chronic Fatigue

Fibromyalgia

Interstitial Cystitis

CRPS

Chronic headaches

to name but a few!

Get in touch now to discuss how these approaches can help you overcome persistent pain and other ongoing symptoms.

hello@paintherapyclinic.co.uk

03/07/2024

It’s important to note that this can happen even when there’s nothing structurally wrong with our bodies. In fact, one of the most important pain studies of the last few years actually captured this process in action.

Scientists followed people who had recently injured their backs. For most of the patients, the injury healed, and the pain went away. But for some of the patients, even after the body healed, the pain remained.

The scientists took brain scans of these patients. At first, their pain was active in the typical regions of the brain. But when the pain became chronic, it shifted to parts of the brain associated with learning and memory. Their brain had accidentally learned the pain and it stayed.

This is what we call “neuroplastic pain.” Any pain that is learned - whether it started with an initial injury or not - is neuroplastic. The brain is getting safe, normal signals from the body, but it’s misinterpreting them as dangerous and generating pain.

The great news is, with Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), we can help the brain unlearn the pain and rewire it to overcome these false alarms.

02/07/2024

Many people are familiar with CBT.
This recent study compares CBT with Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET).

I use EAET as a core component when working with people experiencing persistent pain and other ongoing symtpoms. It can be really beneficial.

If you'd like to find out more get in touch
hello@paintherapyclinic.co.uk or send me a dm.

This randomized clinical trial assesses whether emotional awareness and expression therapy is superior to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain among a racially and ethnically diverse cohort of older veterans.

30/06/2024

28/06/2024

12/06/2024

If you are living with FND, why not get in touch to see how working together could help?
hello@paintherapyclinic.co.uk

💡 Functional neurologic disorder (FND) is the second most common diagnosis in neurology clinics after headaches.

Patients experience symptoms linked to abnormal nerve function (see below). However, there is no known disease of or damage to the nerves or brain that is responsible.

The symptoms are entirely real and can include:

▪Muscle weakness or paralysis

▪Blackouts or non-epileptic seizures/attacks

▪Movement disorders including tremors (shaking), muscle spasms and jerky movements.

▪Loss of vision or double vision.

▪Speech symptoms including dysphonia (whispering or hoarse speech), slurring or stuttering.

▪Disturbance of skin sensation such as hemisensory syndrome (altered sensation down one side of the body)

▪Dizziness and balance problems

The most likely explanation for FND is that there are changes in key circuits in the brain.

09/06/2024

An interesting study from 2019, measured the avoidance behaviours of 44 subjects who have chronic pain. Interestingly, they found that "excessive protective responses (avoidance behaviours) may contribute to the maintenance of long-term chronic pain disability." So, avoiding activities which the subject felt 'may' intensify their symptoms, actually created more fear and as a result, a prolonging of their symptoms:
https://bit.ly/3yNE6Kv

21/05/2024

Love this from Dr. Rachel Zoffness

18/05/2024

EAET has definitely been a really welcome addition to the techniques I use when helping people overcome chronic pain and other persistent symptoms.

🎓 The West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Study

In this study, 53 veterans (mean age = 73 years, 92% male) with chronic musculoskeletal pain were randomized to receive either EAET (Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy, a form of Pain Relief Psychotherapy) or CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).

CBT is the most widely available form of psychotherapy in the U.S. Both treatments were provided as one 90-minute individual session and eight 90-minute group sessions. The goal for patients was to achieve at least 30% pain relief.

The graph shows that only 5% of patients achieved the goal using CBT. However, an astonishing 42% of the EAET patients reached the goal and one-third reported at least 50% pain relief.

This study documents that far better outcomes are achieved with Pain Relief Psychotherapy which has the goal of alleviating symptoms (rather than just helping patients to cope or live with their condition) and that focuses on stress, trauma, and repressed emotions.🎓