Managing Chronic Pain With Psychological Treatments in Boise
Not all pain stems from trauma. If you’re experiencing stress-related pain from a demanding career, physical pain from a sports injury, or anxiety and depression often associated with chronic pain conditions, pain psychology can help.
“People with high-stress jobs may over time find that the ongoing stress creates chronic neck pain, back pain, or pain in other areas of the body,” Dr. Melissa Kremer, PsyD, explains.
You may have tried traditional pain management methods such as injections, medications, or surgery, and feel like they haven’t fully addressed your suffering. The doctors at Idaho Neuropsychology will work alongside your current healthcare providers to offer another layer of chronic pain management using evidence-based approaches and a comprehensive care plan that addresses the psychological impact of living with chronic pain.
Understanding Chronic Pain Without Trauma
Many people experience chronic pain without any traumatic psychological event attached, and the psychological impact is significant and treatable. Chronic pain without trauma or PTSD is a valid and common concern seen at our clinic.
“The Venn diagram overlap of PTSD and pain is significant, but it is not 100%,” Kremer shares.
Note: If we discover trauma is present in your situation, we can suggest different trauma-focused treatments to assist with pain management.
When Pain Doesn’t Come from Psychological Trauma
Pain can stem from a variety of sources, including car accidents, exercise injuries, exhausting careers, and chronic pain conditions.
We treat high-achieving Boise professionals who experience:
- Stress-related chronic pain. These include issues in the neck and back, along with tension in various parts of the body.
- Pain following an injury or a surgery. This can happen without a trauma component.
- Chronic pain conditions. Ongoing health issues may trigger the psychological response of suffering.
- Pain that has led to depression or anxiety. Pain psychology works to shift your mindset and emotional wellness.
How Chronic Pain Affects Your Mental Health and Daily Life
Chronic pain is exhausting and real, often making an impact on your mental health and how you manage your daily life.
Chronic pain affects both your physical body and your mind.
At Idaho Neuropsychology, we can help with the mind part while you work with your pain management-focused medical providers on the body part.
The Difference Between Pain and Suffering
We often talk about pain and suffering interchangeably, but it’s important to understand the difference between the two so you can best target your health treatments.
Pain is a biological sensory signal that happens in the body. It may feel like aching, shooting, tingling, stinging, or electric sensations. It can present as acute or sudden, episodic from time to time, or become chronic. Pain lasting longer than three months is considered chronic pain—and over time—may affect your physical movement, mood, relationships, work, and ability to enjoy activities.
Suffering is the emotional, psychological response to pain. It happens when a person feels a severe state of distress, to the point of feeling like they are no longer whole. Suffering associated with pain is often overlooked or misunderstood by healthcare providers. Since suffering is a subjective experience related to one’s sense of self, treatment aims to help change the psychological experience of pain and suffering related to one’s sense of self.
At Idaho Neuropsychology, we work with you to address psychological suffering stemming from pain. We use pain psychology to reduce suffering, not eliminate pain signals.
“Pain is the biological signal. We cannot take someone’s pain away. We can reduce psychological suffering,” Kremer elaborates.
How Pain Psychology Differs from Pain Management Clinics
Pain management clinics work to reduce the biological sensory signals in your body, while pain psychology focuses on reducing suffering, retraining the nervous system response, and improving your quality of life.
Both, when used together, help you manage pain. Many patients benefit from this integrated approach. At Idaho Neuropsychology, we strive to work alongside your pain management team to provide a comprehensive treatment plan that focuses on both the mind and body.
As you research ways to treat pain, both pain psychology and pain management clinics can assist you on your wellness journey.
What Pain Management Clinics Offer
Pain management clinics offer medications, injections, surgeries, physical therapy, and more to help reduce discomfort. They work to minimize physical aches, soreness, irritation, tenderness, and stiffness to improve quality of life.
But, there’s more to effectively managing pain than treating the physical body.
What Pain Psychology Addresses
When you add pain psychology to your health care regimen, you’ll learn that how you cope with pain affects your quality of life. While we can’t eliminate biological pain signals, we can help manage the psychological impact of pain, regardless of your medical diagnosis.
Pain psychology focuses on reducing your suffering, or the emotional impact of pain, so you can get back to doing the things you love, focus better at work, and be more present for your family and friends.
Why an Integrative Approach Works Best
An integrative approach—consulting with a pain management clinic, visiting with your usual healthcare providers, and working with pain psychology—works best because it’s comprehensive, addressing both the mind and the body.
At Idaho Neuropsychology, we work with your medical providers (not in place of) to provide a well-rounded approach to healing from pain.
Chronic Pain Conditions We Treat in Boise
We work with many people who are experiencing pain and suffering as a result. We know the psychological impact of pain is significant, regardless of how it started or what continues to trigger it.
While we do not diagnose physical medical conditions, we do assist in the psychological management of a variety of pain-causing situations, including injuries, stress, and chronic health conditions.
Evidence-Based Psychological Treatments for Chronic Pain
At Idaho Neuropsychology, we focus on using evidence-based psychological treatments and our clinical psychological expertise for pain management.
We strive to make our patients feel empowered. They have the ability to control their level of suffering, how they cope with pain, and what their daily life looks like.
As we collaborate on a treatment plan, focus is placed on creating practical coping strategies and finding resilience through a variety of evidence-based treatments, including acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and clinical hypnosis.
“We individualize the treatment to fit you, rather than forcing you to fit into a predetermined treatment protocol,” Kremer explains.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for Pain
We offer acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help modify unhealthy behaviors and boost personal development when managing pain.
During this type of treatment, we explore the concepts of acceptance, defusion, self, now, values, and action to better understand what fuels your suffering and coping mechanisms. Once the root cause(s) are identified, we can diffuse any misconceptions and implement new, healthy behaviors.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Pain
To improve functioning and quality of life, we also use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a focused conversational therapy.
With this approach, we work together to understand the unhelpful ways you think about pain, and what patterns you’ve learned around pain management that lead to suffering. We can then work together to change your thinking patterns by identifying distortions and using problem-solving skills, which leads to confidence and resilience.
Clinical Hypnosis for Pain Management
Clinical hypnosis can influence brain activity, in turn controlling acute or chronic pain stemming from injuries, surgeries, or illness.
This process puts the brain into a state of high focus and attention, so we can tap into how you perceive and manage pain. We then work together to modify those perceptions so you detach from thoughts that may increase pain.
Measurement-Based Care: Ensuring Your Treatment Works
Every person who works with the team at Idaho Neuropsychology gets individualized treatments, specific to their concerns and conditions. To ensure your pain psychology plan is working, we use a measurement-based care approach.
This means we conduct continuous assessments to make sure the treatment is working as expected, and you’re making progress toward your health goals. If we notice a stall in progression, we adjust the approach until we see forward movement.
Why Choose Idaho Neuropsychology for Chronic Pain Treatment
At Idaho Neuropsychology, we want you to not only feel better, but also see you thrive. Our goal is to help you return to valued activities despite the pain.
The greatest feedback you can give us is sharing stories of working more effectively, going for a hike over the weekend, or finding moments of joy with your family, even when pain persists. This tells us suffering has diminished, and your coping strategies are working well.
Specialized Expertise in Pain Psychology
Dr. Melissa Kremer, PsyD, offers specialized expertise in pain psychology at Idaho Neuropsychology in Boise. She’s spent nearly 15 years at the Boise VA treating chronic pain using evidence-based pain psychology therapies and treatment programs that she’s built from the ground up.
Non-Medicinal, Evidence-Based Approach
We focus on the psychological aspects of pain management, including developing coping skills, learning to adapt to changes, and improving quality of life. There’s no need to wait for the pain to be gone to live. You can be productive, move forward in life, and have good days while managing chronic pain.
We do not prescribe medications or diagnose medical conditions. Your primary health care provider, medical specialists, or pain management clinic team can assist with those areas.
Comprehensive Assessment and Personalized Treatment Plans
When you first visit with us, we will conduct a comprehensive assessment to learn more about you, your pain, and your goals. This information fuels a personalized treatment plan tailored to your needs, not insurance company limitations.
We focus on thoroughness and individualized care. We know every person’s experience with pain is unique, so your treatments should reflect that.
Self-Pay Model for Unlimited, Individualized Care
At Idaho Neuropsychology, we offer a self-pay model, which means you do not need an insurance referral to receive pain psychology treatments.
The unlimited, individualized care allows you to have as many sessions as you need to address the full psychological impact of managing pain, with no insurance caps. Your treatment will continue for as long as it’s beneficial to you.
What to Expect from Your Chronic Pain Assessment in Boise
After you reach out, we can usually get you on the schedule within two to four weeks for a chronic pain assessment. Then, you’ll meet with Dr. Kremer either in our Boise office or by virtual video session.
We understand the exhaustion and frustration that can accompany chronic pain, so we will work together slowly, possibly over two appointments, to understand your needs and come up with a treatment plan together.
Initial Consultation Process
If you’re experiencing pain that impacts your ability to function the way you’d like to, reach out for an initial consultation. This 15-minute free phone call will allow you and Dr. Kremer to assess if our programs fit your needs. Then, an intake appointment can be scheduled if our services are a good fit for your situation.
We will discuss your concerns and ask questions to understand how you’re coping with the pain. This information gathering session helps us determine which evidence-based treatment option will work best for you.
Understanding Your Pain History and Current Impact
As we work through your assessment, the questions will become detailed so we can understand your pain history and how it’s affecting your current daily life.
You may want to bring notes or records from your other care providers to help tell the complete story. Do you keep a pain journal or mark tough days on the calendar? Do you keep a log of symptoms? That information is helpful for our team to review.
Creating Your Personalized Treatment Plan
Once we’ve gathered all the information about your past and current pain, we can fully address the suffering you’re managing by creating a personalized treatment plan.
We will work together to understand the underlying thoughts and ideas that are emotionally triggering discomfort, and reframe them so you can have better days ahead.
Getting Started with Pain Psychology Treatment in Boise
If traditional pain management hasn’t given you the relief you’d like, consider trying pain psychology. The mind and body work together, so adding therapy to address the psychological effects of pain makes sense.
We use evidence-based pain psychology therapies and treatment programs so you can develop healthy coping skills and have a new outlook on life as you manage pain.
Schedule a pain psychology evaluation with Idaho Neuropsychology today. Give us a call at (208) 789-0910 to discuss your specific pain concerns or use this contact form to reach out online.
