How it Works
Check out this 3-minute video to understand how the brain creates chronic symptoms.
Neuroplastic Symptoms
According to the Pain Psychology Center: “Recent studies have shown that chronic back pain, neck pain, fibromyalgia symptoms, IBS, repetitive strain injury, headaches, and other chronic conditions are often not the result of structural causes, but of psychophysiologic processes that can be reversed. This is known as neuroplastic pain. … Though the pain can be addressed psychologically, this does not imply that the pain is imaginary. In fact, brain imaging studies have demonstrated that the symptoms are quite real. Recent research has shown that pain is often the result of learned neural pathways in the brain. Just as pain can be learned, it can also be unlearned.”
Start the process of determining whether your symptoms are neuroplastic:
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Take a short self-assessment quiz created by Dr. David Clarke, president of the Psychophysiologic Disorders Association
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Listen to this podcast episode with Alan Gordon and Dr. Howard Schubiner on how to diagnose your own pain
Pain Reprocessing Therapy
I am certified in Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), which uses a system of psychological techniques to retrain the brain to interpret and respond to signals from the body properly, breaking the cycle of chronic symptoms. PRT has five main components: 1) education about the brain origins and reversibility of pain, 2) gathering and reinforcing personalized evidence for the brain origins and reversibility of pain, 3) attending to and appraising pain sensations through a lens of safety, 4) addressing other emotional threats, and 5) gravitating to positive feelings and sensations.
A randomized controlled trial at the University of Colorado Boulder validated PRT as the most effective current treatment for chronic conditions. In the study, there were 100 chronic back pain patients with an average of 11 years of pain. Half of them received PRT twice a week for four weeks, and half of them received treatment as usual. In the PRT group, 98% of patients improved and 66% of patients were pain-free or nearly pain-free at the end of treatment. These outcomes were largely maintained one year later.
If you think this approach may be right for you:
