Psychological Treatments for Chronic Pain

Abstract

There is no real dispute in the literature on the importance of psychological variables in the experience of pain and pain reporting. Since the development of Gate Control Theory the extent of tissue damage is seen as less relevant in the experience of chronic pain, than specificity theory previously suggested. Increasingly, central effects are being considered in treating both the sensation of pain and pain-related behaviors. Methods of psychological treatment for chronic pain are developing rapidly in response both to new psychological studies, and a general disillusionment with existing methods. But this development of psychological methods is not confined to those patients suspected as having a large psychogenic component to their pain. We are not simply dealing here with psychological disturbance: the methods described are equally applicable to patients complaining of chronic pain, irrespective of the extent of psychological component involved.