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Updated 09/23/2023 Our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors can make pain worse or more manageable. We can change the chronic pain experience 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:
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. I learned CBT while attending the prestigious 3-week interdisciplinary Mayo Clinic Pain Rehabilitation Center. Find a CBT pain therapist It can be hard to find psychologists trained in cognitive behavioral therapy for pain. Ask them about their approach to treatment. You might want to use the content from my pain truths to see if their practice beliefs matches the latest pain science. There are links to therapist search tools and pain rehabilitation programs below. Learn more and do more
 Image courtesy of McGovern Medical School
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