Really interesting article ! must read

Found this while googling around

"
Psychological Factors in Chronic Pain: An Introduction to Psychosomatic Pain Management
by Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, M.D., PhD

This lecture was presented at the 14th annual meeting of the American Association of Orthopaedic Medicine, Tempe Arizona Feb.21, 1997

Introduction

Most pain treating physicians have a vague notion that there may be a psychological component contributing to the severity of chronic pain. The International Association for the Study of Pain defined pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with the actual or potential tissue damage"(1).

The well respected British neurologist and researcher Barry Wyke demonstrated(2), that the neurological signal from a painful stimulus travels from the receptors in the periphery ("nociceptors") to the thalamus, where the message is split: one pathway goes up to the sensory cortex, telling the patient where the pain is and what particular sensation it causes (warm, pulling, pressing etc.). The other pathway goes to the frontal lobe, which is now accepted as being partially part of the limbic system. Stimulation of this area gives the patient the emotional experience that goes along with having pain ("it makes me sick, hopeless ...I feel terrible ...I am afraid .."etc.). Patients who had their frontal lobes removed can still tell where nociceptors are stimulated, but there is no suffering whatsoever that goes along with the experience. It is really the "psychological" component that has earned chronic pain the attention it is given in modern medicine. Why then are we not focusing our attention on the ways in which we can help patients in this area? Why are most of us still trying to "fix" pain with all the invasive procedural approaches available today? Why not develop a psychological intervention that treats the emotional part of chronic pain and leave the rest alone?

One of the main reasons I found for this dilemma can be explained quite simply: medicine is a science that has clearly come into its adulthood. Many safe injection procedures and other technical approaches are available today. These are teachable, learnable and reproducible. Psychology however is a young science(3) with many diverting opinions, each exploring different personality models, being based in often contradictory philosophies. Most pain practitioners have been disappointed with the results when we send our difficult pain patients to the local psychotherapist (whether working in a hospital setting or in private practice), even though rare individual practitioners may have consistently good results. It appears that both the practitioner and the method used play an important role, more so than in other areas of pain management . Psychological approaches are always unique and specific to the individual and do not lend themselves to be studied with a "double blind study". "

Source: http://www.klinghardtacademy.com/Articles/An-Introduction-to-Psychosomatic-Pain-Management.html (An Introduction to Psychosomatic Pain Management)



I am going to buy one of the books mentioned: The Psychobiology of Mind-body Healing: New Concepts of Therapeutic Hypnosis by Ernest Lawrence Rossi

 

Nice article