What can talking therapy do for people living with Chronic Pain?

3 February 2022

Categories: ITALK HEALTH, TREATMENT

Psychological therapies are increasingly recommended to help people manage their chronic pain, but how can treatments for mental health help with physical pain?

Our workshop Living with Chronic Pain aims to answer your questions, and provide an opportunity to hear from others in a similar situation.

You don’t need a diagnosis or professional referral to attend. If you experience persistent or long-term pain, join us to find out how we can help.

Living with Chronic Pain

 

Upcoming Workshops (2023)

Wednesday 18th October 11am -1pm

Wednesday 15th November 11am -1pm

Wednesday 20th December 11am -1pm

 

Upcoming Workshops (2024)

Wednesday 17th January 11am -1pm

Monday 19th February 11am -1pm

 

This session explores the way pain can affect our mental wellbeing, and in turn how our mood can affect the way we respond to and manage our pain.

Taking a psychological approach to pain management doesn’t mean “mind over matter,” and it certainly doesn’t mean treating your pain as an emotional problem.

Instead we aim to help you to manage the impact of pain on your mood and your enjoyment of life.

Many of our patients also find that this helps them to manage their pain too. But we don’t claim to cure your chronic pain. Where a psychological approach can help is in feeling more able to cope. For some people, feeling more in control also helps them to feel more able to implement pain management techniques from their medical team.

It’s also true that the stress, frustration or exhaustion of living with chronic pain adds its own physical impact in our body. Stress can add tension to our muscles, disrupt our digestion and cause flare-ups of medical conditions, on top of the chronic pain we already experience. This means some patients experience an improvement in their pain through techniques that reduce the physical symptoms of stress or anxiety.

What to Expect

Living with Chronic Pain is held as an online interactive session using Zoom. 

This means that you can join from the comfort of your own home, and still have the opportunity to ask questions to our facilitators, and have discussions with other participants.

If you’re nervous about joining an interactive session, you’re not alone and our facilitators are well practiced in helping people feel at ease. You won’t be asked to share anything personal, and you’ll be welcome to simply watch and listen if you prefer.

Our italk practitioners will provide an introduction to how psychological approaches could help, and what italk can offer.

And, to share their expertise in how pain affects our body, and the emotional impact of pain, the South West Hampshire Pain Management Service have specially recorded a presentation for us as a guest feature in this session.

We hope that this workshop might offer you a helpful introduction to italk, but we appreciate that we cannot cover everything in one session. So, if you feel that you would like further support, you will have the opportunity to arrange an assessment with italk to explore this.

Find more information here and use our online self-referral form to book your place.