Understanding and Managing Chronic Pain

Most of the time pain serves as a critical part of our sensory system, and is therefore a necessary though unpleasant function of a healthy body. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that chronic pain may be more like a disease or pathology of the nervous system associated with abnormal responses in the brain and spinal cord. In this light, chronic pain is both a common and serious medical condition. After more than two decades of providing psychological consultation in various chronic pain clinics and programs, I have no doubt about this assertion. Chronic pain is serious because of the impact it has on every facet of patients' lives and because for many patients, cures are unattainable. It is medical because, at its root cause, chronic pain is always connected with the body and the brain.