Posted by Sterling on 9/4/2008, 8:53:44, in reply to "Re: Pain"
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Lale,
Many years ago I worked in a pain clinic. For chronic pain patients, we offered classes and/or psychotherapy in addition to standard treatments such as medication and nerve blocks. It is a fact that pain is a mental event. Depression, frustration, and anxiety will increase the experienced level of pain. Calmness, acceptance, and a more positive attitude will decrease the experienced level. Not only has this been experimentally established, but I can report that I personally heard many patients express surprise and gratitude at the amount of pain relief obtained from an alleviation of the psychiatric component of their pain problems.
While this is universally true, it is likely to have less impact on acute pain patients for whom the pain will go away in a relatively brief period of time. It can also be of some limited assistance with extreme pain, as in terminal cancer patients, but, of course, the amount of help these techniques can provide to such persons is limited.
So, if over time Mann's patients come to acceptance and the ability to refocus their attention outward and away from their pain, they can get "used to it," at least up to a point. If they struggle and are in despair, then the pain will probably not lessen.
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