Understanding Chronic Pain

David Trammel's picture

Research shows that to fighting chronic pain, you must take into consideration of not just the physical side of the issue, BUT also the mental.

"100 million Americans have chronic pain. Very few use one of the best tools to treat it."

Golson’s pain was not caused by anything physically wrong with him. But it wasn’t imagined. It was real.

After weaning himself off the opioid Vicodin and feeling like he had exhausted every medical option, Golson turned to a book that described how pain could be purely psychological in origin. That ultimately took a pain psychologist, a therapist who specializes in pain — not a physician — to treat the true source: his fearful thoughts. Realizing that psychological therapy could help “was one of the most profoundly surprising experiences of my life,” Golson says. No doctor he ever saw “even hinted my pain might be psychogenic,” meaning pain that’s psychological in origin.

Golson was lucky; few chronic pain patients ever get the chance to understand the psychological dimensions of their pain or try psychological therapies.