Counselling for
Chronic Pain
Your pain is real. Let’s turn down the volume and reclaim your life.
Pain signals danger. When you are injured, pain prevents further tissue damage. There’s a widespread belief that pain is always related to tissue damage or disease, but that isn’t always true. Many forms of chronic pain or physical symptoms (fatigue, numbness, dizziness) do not occur from damage or disease, but rather from a felt sense of danger and dysregulation in the nervous system. The brain learns to interpret normal sensation as dangerous, and it becomes primed to produce pain even when there is no actual threat present.
Neuroscience tells us that when pain becomes chronic, the brain areas tied to emotion light up, suggesting chronic pain can function as emotional pain. By changing our relationship to difficult emotions—such as anxiety, fear, grief or anger—we can increase a sense of safety in the body and help chronic symptoms to relax or even go away.
Therapy can help reduce or even eliminate chronic pain and symptoms by both rewiring the brain to correctly interpret sensory signals coming from the body as safe and by helping to address emotional roots of pain.
Therapy might help with your pain/physical symptoms if…
The medical route has not identified a structural cause or resolved your symptoms
Imaging or medical tests do not match the severity of symptoms
You are constantly preoccupied with and fearful of your pain
Your pain first arose during a stressful time in your life or in the absence of an injury.
After injury, your pain has persisted for longer than would be expected for tissue to heal
You have diligently done all the things to manage your pain, and yet it persists
You are prone to perfectionism, putting pressure on yourself, self-criticism, worrying or people-pleasing
You also have anxious or depressive symptoms
Your symptoms are triggered by stress or even something unrelated to the body (e.g. present in only a certain environment, time or day or with certain people).
You experience pain or symptoms in multiple parts of your body (e.g. dizziness, fatigue, numbness) or the symptoms spread or move around
You experienced childhood adversity
There is nothing like a little physical pain to keep your mind off your emotional problems.
John Sarno
How I Can Support You
Therapy for chronic pain and illness involves helping you to establish and deepen an internalized sense of safety. My approach draws on Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and Internal Family Systems to address two prongs of chronic symptom recovery: a) emotional issues that lead to the onset or maintenance of pain and b) unlearning the fears and habitual reactions to the pain.
In our work together we will:
Examine your understanding and beliefs about your body and symptoms
Use mind-body techniques to retrain your brain to more accurately interpret the sensory signals your body is sending
Process unresolved emotions or memories, and
Learn to regulate the nervous system to increase the overall sense of safety in your body.
This approach tends to be most effective when there isn’t a clear structural reason for the pain or when symptoms are inconsistent—shifting location, waxing and waning, or provoked by stress. Common non-structural pain conditions include general low back pain, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, persistent post-surgical pain, TMJ disorders, headaches, and health anxiety.
What You Can Expect
Through our work together you can expect to change your relationship to your pain:
Reduce suffering
Develop an understanding of the mind body connection
Increase your confidence in your ability to manage or even eliminate symptoms
Decrease overall anxiety, depression, anger and stress levels
Improve your relationship with yourself and others
Clarify values and improve ability to engage in meaningful activities
Improve your quality of life