You can find the hardcover, paperback, and ebook versions here or wherever you buy your books
The Institute has provided those living with chronic pain, their family members and their providers evidence-based digestible information about chronic pain for over ten years. We are pleased to be publishing How to Have Hope When There Is No Cure: A Comprehensive Guide to Chronic Pain Rehabilitation. This groundbreaking book is the culmination of decades of work by our late founder, Dr. Murray J McAllister, PsyD, and serves as the pinnacle of our mission; to make pain management more effective by changing the culture of how chronic pain is treated. With the publication of this book, we will no longer be adding new content to our website or social channels, but current content will remain available.What is Chronic Pain?
Patients and healthcare providers commonly think of pain as a symptom of an underlying injury or illness. Say, for example, you hurt your low back while lifting. Perhaps, you’ve injured a muscle or ligament, or perhaps it’s an injury to the spine, like a disc bulge or herniation. Either way, you now have pain and the pain is the symptom of the injury. The same might be true for any health condition that causes pain, particularly when it first starts.
CBT and Central Sensitization
A study published this month in Pain produced what is likely some of the most important research findings this year for the field of chronic pain rehabilitation. The study demonstrated that basic CBT interventions can reduce central sensitization (Salomons, et al., 2014). Countless studies in the past have shown that CBT and CBT-based chronic pain rehabilitation programs are effective in reducing self-reported pain in chronic pain patients.
Abdominal Pain
What is chronic abdominal pain?
Abdominal pain is common and occurs to most people on occasion. It usually occurs for a brief period of time and can have many benign causes, such as indigestion, stress and anxiety. Sometimes, such as when having appendicitis, it is serious and requires the attention of a healthcare provider. Abdominal pain can also become chronic. Healthcare providers consider it chronic when it last longer than six months.
What is Central Sensitization?
Central sensitization is a condition of the nervous system that is associated with the development and maintenance of chronic pain. When central sensitization occurs, the nervous system goes through a process called wind-up and gets regulated in a persistent state of high reactivity. This persistent, or regulated, state of reactivity lowers the threshold for what causes pain and subsequently comes to maintain pain even after the initial injury might have healed.
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Opioid Tapering as an Exposure-based Therapy for Chronic Pain
“Thank you. I’m so grateful to all of you. You’ve given me my life back… but why did it take so long for me to be referred to this program?” This series of statements, along with the concluding question, is… -
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Pain?
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a traditional form of therapy that is used for a great many types of health conditions. Historically beginning in the 1970’s, it was first used as treatments for chronic pain and depression,1, 2 but later applied to… -
Why See a Psychologist for Pain?
People are sometimes surprised that there are psychologists who are not mental health providers. It’s also true for people with persistent pain who might wonder why their physician referred them to a psychologist for the management of pain. ‘I’m not… -
Whatever Happened to Backache?
You’d think that we’d all agree on what back pain is. Pain in the low back is almost as common as days of the week. Most everyone has had or will have back pain in the course of their lives… -
Should the Definition of Opioid Addiction Change?
Twenty some odd years ago, the American Academy of Pain Medicine and the American Pain Society, two large pain-related professional organizations, teamed up to agree upon what it means to have both chronic pain and be addicted to opioid pain…
