Category: Chronic Illness/Pain

Alan Gordon is the Director of the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles, and I’ve been waiting with bated breath for his book to come out. The fact is that we have a chronic pain epidemic in this country, and many of us as therapists will see clients with chronic pain, whether that is their primary presenting symptom or not.

It’s a bit of a dicey topic with clients to suggest that their thinking/brain/mind may have something to do with their pain – it’s often insulting like “do you think my pain is just in my head?” As Gordon says “do you feel your pain? Then it’s real.” But he’s correct in saying that physical pain is a conversation between the mind/brain and the body – every time we feel pain, it’s our brain that is sending the signal to initiate pain. With chronic pain, Gordon says that those neurons have fired together so much that the brain becomes “stuck on” with pain signals, sometimes after the physical injury should have run its course. He calls this neuroplastic pain.

Because a person in pain gets in a cycle of fear about their pain, the main thrust of Pain Reprocessing Therapy is to understand that it’s just your brain misfiring and to send yourself messages of safety. After determining the pain may be neuroplastic, clients do “somatic tracking”, which is to just observe their bodies with curiosity instead of the fear-based laser focus they usually use. Clients also send themselves messages of safety instead of fear.

While I’m dubious that this is a 100% ironclad treatment for pain, I have found many of the things he’s saying to be true with my chronic pain clients. I will absolutely keep this book handy and use these techniques with willing chronic pain clients. Since chronic pain is such a common issue, I suggest having this book on hand for clinicians, even if chronic pain is not your specialty.

^{Disclaimer: The link above is an Amazon affiliate link and I receive a small compensation from purchases made from this link.}

I’ve been waiting to read this book for a long time. This is an important book – SO important. If you do not have a mysterious illness or know someone who does, then you are in the minority. What I mean by mysterious illnesses are things like fibromyalgia, lupus, Lyme disease – but also the lesser known ones like Ehlers-Danlos, dysautonomia, POTS, gastroparesis and so on. Most of them are autoimmune but not all. Also, these diseases have a huge percentage of female sufferers. The hallmark of this experience is that these diseases are women’s diseases, and when women try to figure out what is wrong with them, they are not believed by the medical establishment and it takes YEARS to get a diagnosis, almost always. And then when they do get a diagnosis, there is often not very good treatment at all.

I work with chronic illness so this book was not a huge surprise to me. This is Ramey’s memoir of her own journey with unexplained chronic illness, but the story is a familiar one to me. The level of disrespect from doctors, the insistence that it is a psychological condition, the fight to get treatment, and even the medical malpractice. I wish I could say I’ve never heard these stories, but I hear them all the time. If you are a therapist, you ARE going to have these clients, and you must read this book, because we therapists can do a LOT of damage if we go the “think positive” or “your thoughts are creating your reality” route. You need to understand that these are real experiences, and that being believed and validated is the best medicine there is.

Not only does Ramey give us the blow by blow of her own health journey, but she also gives a lot of science, philosophy and treatment ideas for these issues. There are things that most Western doctors do not believe in that really might help for these issues, and there is a lot of solid science behind it, despite their disbelief. Things like adrenal fatigue and cortisol issues, the HPA axis (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) and so on. Not that we would give medical advice as therapists, but if our clients are talking about these things, it would be good if we don’t have to suppress and eye roll because we think they are “googling” their illness (something they get accused of a LOT).

Ramey also talks about some philosophical issues, like how our society really values the masculine and undervalues feminine qualities (like rest, self-care and so on). Also, many of these chronic illness sufferers are HSPs (highly sensitive people), or are too nice and do not know how to say no or fight for themselves – or they’re afraid to, as then they are labeled “hysterical” or too emotional and — you guessed it, told once again that it’s all psychological.

Ultimately, Ramey gives advice that won’t seem super over the top or unusual, but bears repeating in this context. Eat real food, get gentle movement going, reduce stress in any way you can, learn to speak up for yourself, believe women and build community. But she also gives some other more specific advice, like telling us how useful low-dose naltrexone can be, for one. (I take low-dose naltrexone for my mild case of Ehlers-Danlos, and I also really believe that it works).

Ultimately, I do think that every therapist and mental health professional should read this book. I wish that everyone would read this book, because I think our society would be better off. As I said at the beginning, if you do not know a woman with one of these mysterious illnesses, you would be in a small minority. They may not talk to you about it, because they may not view you as supportive. But you would be if you read this book, which is why you should!

Disclaimer: The link above is an Amazon Affiliate link and I receive a small compensation from purchases made through this link.