Hills I Will Die on as a Therapist who Specializes in Chronic Pain & Illness
This may ruffle some feathers, but I feel very strongly about these 8 things when working with chronic pain & chronic illness. I have worked with many people suffering from chronic illness & pain, and have witnessed the patterns that help the most with healing. In fact, I myself am in recovery from chronic illness and incorporate these very themes into my own life every day.
Fighting against your symptoms is only making them worse. Part of the recovery process is (ironically) learning to accept your symptoms, rather than fighting or suppressing them.
Symptom improvement is never linear. In therapy, it is standard to expect recovery to be 2 steps forward and 1 step back.
What chronic pain & illness sufferers often hear: “It’s all in your head”- is a massive oversimplification of the complicated relationship between the brain, nervous system, and the physical body.
You don’t have to do everything perfectly in order to heal. In fact, this can often be a trap that is keeping your symptoms stuck. Making sure you get enough sleep, eat healthy, take the “right” supplements, etc. all add to your belief that your body is something to be “fixed.”
Your body and brain are ALWAYS working for you, not against you. I know this is tough to understand when you’re struggling with pain and illness. However, your pain and symptoms are a signal from your nervous system that something is wrong, so listen to what they’re trying to tell you.
The mind-body connection is real, but that does NOT mean your symptoms are imaginary or made up. Psychological and biological processes can influence each other without symptoms being “just psychological.”
Pain is created by the brain. And as I've said, that does not mean your pain is “all in your head." In fact, ALL signals are created by the subconscious brain- hunger, tiredness, thirst, and pain. And all pain is real- there is no such thing as imaginary pain. Although it is a completely subconscious process, we can actually work on ways to create safety signals that can lower the pain threshold.
Chronic pain & illness is not something you have to live with for the rest of your life. There is hope! When you apply certain skills learned in therapy targeting your brain circuits and responses to the pain, most people can and do recover.
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