Pain Psychology

Can you really cure chronic pain without drugs, surgery, or therapy? Surprisingly, often the answer is yes. While chronic pain can have a physical cause, this book, written by a leading UK physiotherapist and chronic pain specialist, reveals how very real, even debilitating, pain can frequently be caused by our brain in response to repressed or avoided emotions as a result of current and even past experiences. This process is at the root of many common complaints.

For over 20 years, Jim Curtis has battled a mysterious chronic illness. He grew accustomed to living in pain, denial, and despair. But when traditional medical therapies didn't help, he sought answers elsewhere. He traveled the world and met a group of extraordinary people he calls the Stimulati - and what he learned from them ultimately changed his life.

For four decades, Dr. Les Fehmi has been a leader in brainwave biofeedback (also called neurofeedback), training individuals how to balance and regulate their brainwave patterns to improve mental, emotional, and physical health. Dissolving Pain is based on the premise that although pain is perceived to exist in a particular part of the body, pain in fact resides in the brain. Dr. Fehmi shows us that it is possible to learn to resolve pain at the brain level, using simple attention exercises.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent more than three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.

New York Times bestseller (The Biggest Buff, The Confidence Game, Mastermind) and New Yorker writer Maria Konnikova delves into the mysterious ailment that she and 39 million others suffer from in the U.S. alone: Migraine, a disease that is still little understood, yet debilitating to its sufferers.

Today, we know more about mental health than ever before, but traditional medicine still mistakes subtle signs of trauma for stress, anxiety, or chronic disease—sometimes even retraumatizing patients with outdated and misguided methods. Treatment plans that focus on the mind are only addressing the downstream effects. Likewise, common medical approaches to manage symptoms fail to explore root causes and promote genuine recovery.

Chronic pain not only affects the individual experiencing it, but also has a significant impact on their family dynamics. This is a serious issue that we as individuals do not talk about or share to even our families. It drains and deprives us of happiness hence long term suffering and in silence, eventually affecting our work, family and friends in our lives. lives. The complex and multifaceted condition of chronic pain involves the interaction of social, psychological, and biological factors. Understanding the psychological causes of chronic pain is essential for effective management, ...

For the past decade, author Tian Dayton has been researching trauma and addiction, and how psychodrama (or sociometry group psychotherapy) can be used in their treatment. This latest book identifies the interconnection of trauma and addictive behavior, and shows why they can become an unending cycle. This groundbreaking audiobook offers listeners effective ways to work through their traumas in order to heal their addictions and their predilection toward what clinicians call self-medicating.

In America, we teach that strength means holding back tears and shaming your own feelings. In the Black community, these pressures are especially poignant. Poor mental health outcomes-- including diagnoses of depression and anxiety, reliance on prescription drugs, and suicide–have skyrocketed in the past decade. In this book, actor Courtney B. Vance seeks to change this trajectory. Along with professional expertise from famed psychologist Dr. Robin L. Smith, Courtney B. Vance explores issues of grief, relationships, identity, and race through the telling of his own most formative experiences

Are you trapped in a relationship that hurts more than it heals—yet you still can’t walk away? You know they’re not good for you. You’ve cried, questioned, and convinced yourself to leave… yet something always pulls you back. This isn’t love. This is emotional addiction—and it’s not your fault. In You’re Not Addicted to Them. You’re Addicted to the Pain, Lena Hartley gently untangles the roots of trauma bonding, revealing why so many strong, self-aware women find themselves stuck in cycles of hurt, hope, and heartbreak. This isn’t just a book about letting go. It’s a...

Post-traumatic stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, substance abuse, depression, a lack of confidence, and many other mental and physical ailments may be a result of childhood trauma you have endured. Uncovering, accepting, and healing this childhood trauma will allow you to let go of the pain, releasing yourself from the guilt, shame, and self-destruction you have been living with. This book will provide you with tools and strategies to heal your childhood trauma allowing you to live fully.

Your brain runs your life. When it works right, your body works right, and your decisions tend to be thoughtful and goal directed. Bad choices, however, can lead to a myriad of problems in your body. Studies have shown that your habits turn on or off certain genes that make illness and early death more or less likely. But you can master your brain and body for the rest of your life with a scientifically designed program: the Brain Warrior's Way.

Are you ready to heal from past traumas, manage PTSD, and break free from negative thinking? Your Somatic Therapy Toolbox is a transformative guide designed to help adults of all ages harness the power of somatic therapy to promote emotional and physical healing. This book is for everyone, regardless of your past experiences or current struggles. This workbook is not just a theoretical guide. It combines mindfulness, body-based practices, and self-compassion to take you on a practical journey to reconnect with your body and mind. It offers tools that you can use in your daily life to ...

In the United States alone, one in five adults experiences chronic pain. For too long, when a doctor couldn’t find the source of frequent pain, the patient was dismissively told “it’s all in your head.” Today, we know that our somatic responses to trauma, anxiety, and depression create real suffering, and that physical pain can lead to trauma, anxiety, and depression. Dr. Daniel Amen calls this “the doom loop”—the dance between physical and emotional pain. These doom loops interfere with our ability to live our lives. But we can shift the doom loop into a healing loop.

Sex Without Pain: A Self-Treatment Guide to the Sex Life You Deserve is the definitive resource for women experiencing painful sex, authored by internationally recognized pelvic health physical therapist Dr. Heather Jeffcoat. Now in its expanded second edition, this expert guide provides evidence-based solutions for conditions including vaginismus, vulvodynia, vestibulodynia, dyspareunia, overactive pelvic floor, interstitial cystitis, and endometriosis. It also addresses sexual pain related to postpartum recovery, perimenopause, and menopause.

The Divided Mind is the crowning achievement of Dr. John E. Sarno's long and successful career as a groundbreaking medical pioneer. While his earlier books dealt almost exclusively with musculoskeletal pain disorders, here Dr. Sarno addresses the entire spectrum of psychosomatic (mind-body) disorders.

The act of caregiving is physically exhausting and emotionally draining, yet caregivers describe it as rewarding and gratifying. Prolonged exposure to human suffering, however, is not without risks - caregivers report high rates of burnout and poor quality of life.

Masochism is sexy, human, reviled, worshipped, and can be delightfully bizarre. Deliberate and consensual pain has been with us for millennia, encompassing everyone from Black Plague flagellants to ballerinas dancing on broken bones to competitive eaters choking down hot peppers while they cry. Masochism is a part of us. It lives inside workaholics, tattoo enthusiasts, and all manner of garden variety pain-seekers.

Terrie had made it: She had launched her own public relations company with such clients as Eddie Murphy and Johnnie Cochran. Yet she was in constant pain, waking up in terror, overeating in search of relief. For 30 years she kept on her game face of success, exhausting herself daily to satisfy her clients' needs while neglecting her own. When she finally collapsed, she had no clue what was wrong or if there was a way out.

Brantt Myhres wasn't around for the birth of his daughter. Myhres had played for seven different NHL teams, and had made millions. But he'd been suspended four times, all for drug use, and he had partied his way out of the league. This is his story, in his own words, of how he fought his way out of minor hockey into the big league, but never left behind the ghosts of a bleak and troubled childhood.