Why a Psychologist Might Help If You’re in Chronic Pain

An article just published in the Harvard Medical School health blog suggests reasons why your doctor might recommend seeing a psychologist if you’re in chronic pain.

“Pain, depression, and anxiety travel through similar pathways along your nervous system and share many of the same biological mechanisms,” according to the article’s authors, doctors Salim Zerriny and David Boyce. They add that chronic pain — defined as any pain that lasts longer than six months — increases the risk of depression and anxiety, and depression and anxiety strongly predict the development of chronic pain. Between 8% and 12% of chronic pain patients who are prescribed opioids will develop dependency on painkillers. But this doesn’t have to be the case — here are several effective pain treatment that aren’t opioids, according to doctors.

Psychological help, according to the authors, can help sufferers deal with pain catastrophizing (magnifying the negative effects of pain), fear of pain (which can lead to diminished social and physical activity and further decrease quality of life), and possible links between chronic pain and prior trauma — and can help patients develop an accepting attitude towards pain.

One of the most common non-psychological tools for treating pain is aspirin, and that’s just one of its uses. These are 11 medical conditions that aspirin can treat.

Psychological treatment options for chronic pain, say the Harvard experts, include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is talk therapy to help change ways of thinking; mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), which is a form of meditation; hypnosis; and biofeedback, which aims to give you a measure of control over some of your body’s functions. Here are other relaxation techniques you most likely haven’t heard of.

While it’s hard to predict when and if such measures will eventually vanquish an individual’s chronic pain, doctors Zerriny and Boyce note that “The more of these interventions you try, the more likely you will find something that makes a positive impact.”