cognitive behavioral therapy for pain

Our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors can make pain worse or more manageable.

We can change pain and retrain our overprotective pain systems by changing how we think, feel, and behave using a form of biopsychosocial treatment called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

CBT reprograms our minds and bodies to help us feel safe and confident in our ability to manage pain and do the things we enjoy — improving the body’s natural pain relief mechanisms, increasing function, and breaking the chronic pain cycle.

.CBT is based on the core principles that our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors interact together with the pain; that we can become trapped in unhelpful thoughts, emotions, and behaviors; and that we can modify our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to make our experience more manageable. 

It's what changed my pain experience and my life by giving me tools to:

• Accept the pain and live in the present.
• Identify, challenge, and change unhelpful negative thoughts and behaviors.
• Actively self-manage the pain.

Best yet, CBT is a do -it-yourself therapy. You can use it anytime. You don’t need help from anyone once you learn it. And there are no negative side effects.

Learn more and do more

• What is CBT?  (McGovern Medical School)

• ​A Magical Cure for Pain? No – it’s just Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Dr. Rachel Zoffness)
• Managing Chronic Pain: A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Approach​ (WebMD)
• Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain: Patient Guidebook (Department of Veteran's Affairs)
• How To Use CBT Thought Records To Change The Way You Feel
• How to recognize and tame your cognitive distortions​
• 15 Cognitive Distortions To Blame for Negative Thinking
• Cognitive Restructuring Worksheet (University of Washington)
• Replacement Thought Examples
• The Pain Management Workbook (Dr. Rachel Zoffness)

Image courtesy of McGovern Medical School