I went to a great talk last week at UniSA on pain coping skills. It was aimed at helping therapists help people with persistent pain problems.
This was delivered by a psychologist, Associate Professor Christina Bryant, and a physio, Professor Kim Bennell. They talked about psychology and physical methods of helping people cope with pain rather than medication. This is always refreshing, because it is easy to take the automatic position of the medication options. This is particularly poignant with the removal of codeine from over the counter status recently.
I was a bit late – traffic on North Terrace is unreal these days (the 20-minute city is no more). I came on the end of a discussion about pain education.
Pain neuroscience education is something that we are passionate about at Adelaide West, thanks to the passion and tireless work of David Butler and Lorimer Moseley in particular. The evidence is strong that it really helps to understand the key concepts of the biology of pain if you have persistent pain.
These key concepts include knowing the difference between pain and danger messages (nociception) and knowing that pain and tissue damage are not the same thing. In fact they are sometimes quite different. Rethinking pain as a measure of the amount of protection that is judged to be required rather than a simple measure of tissue damage. You can read an example of this here where I discuss the rate of imaging changes in people with no pain.
Unfortunately, this message can be easily misconstrued if not taught well. The message can interpreted as the therapist diminishing the pain that someone is experiencing.
‘So you’re saying it is all in my head’ you might hear.
Contrary to that, it is important for the person that is suffering the pain to have it recognised that their pain is 100% real and irrefutable.
I often say that if you tried to tell someone that their phantom pain was not real in their foot even though their foot was no longer physically there, they may well punch you in the nose. That pain is 100% real, even though the foot may not exist on the end of their leg.
I don’t really class understanding about pain biology as a ‘coping strategy’. To me it is much more than that – it is an intervention, a treatment, and a powerful one at that.
In the next blog, I’ll introduce some of the coping ideas that they discussed. They are simple and blend in well with what we teach, and what books like Explain Pain and Protectometer talk about.
I’ll also discuss the ABC idea that I introduced on Facebook last week (that got a bit of reaction). Just so you know, ABC stands for Antecedent – Belief – Consequence and not implying that it is the basics!
If you have a problem with ongoing pain of any sort, why not give us a call? Organise a time to have a chat and see if we can help. There is no obligation to have treatment with us. You can ‘check us out’ and see if we sound like the kind of people that you could deal with.
Call anytime on 8356 1000, or organise a time clicking on the online booking button at the top of the page, then go to the preassessment options.
