Chronic pain is an epidemic. Fifty million Americans struggle with back pain, headaches, or some other pain that resists all treatment. Desperate pain sufferers are told again and again that there is no cure for chronic pain.
Alan Gordon, a psychotherapist and the founder of the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles, was in grad school when he started experiencing chronic pain and it completely derailed his life. He saw multiple doctors and received many diagnoses, but none of the medical treatments helped. Frustrated with conventional pain management, he developed Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a mind-body protocol that eliminated his own chronic pain and has transformed the lives of thousands of his patients.
PRT is rooted in neuroscience, which has shown that while chronic pain feels like it’s coming from the body, in most cases it’s generated by misfiring pain circuits in the brain. PRT is a system of psychological techniques that rewires the brain to break out of the cycle of chronic pain.
The University of Colorado-Boulder recently conducted a large randomized controlled study on PRT, and the results are remarkable. By the end of the study, the majority of patients were pain-free or nearly pain-free. What’s more, these dramatic changes held up over time.
The Way Out brings PRT to readers. It combines accessible science with a concrete, step-by-step plan to teach sufferers how to heal their own chronic pain.
Hidden From View
By Allan Abbas, M.D.; Howard Schuibiner, M.D.
Print Length: 200 pages
Publication Date: Januarary 1, 2018
Using cutting edge psychotherapeutic and neurophysiologic principles, Hidden From View explains how the brain developed neural pathways that cause symptoms, such as headaches, irritable bowel and bladder syndrome, fibromyalgia, fatigue, insomnia, and chronic neck and back pain. It illustrates powerful emotion focused interviewing techniques to both detect and treat psychophysiologic disorders. Hidden From View empowers physicians, social workers, psychologists, nurses, physical therapists and coaches to understand and diagnose psychophysiologic disorders, and provide educational, cognitive-behavioral, and emotion focused therapies. This will help your patients eliminate, rather than simply cope with, these conditions.
The Hidden Psychology of Pain
By Dr. James Alexander, PhD
Print Length: 470 pages
Publication Date: October 1, 2012
Chronic pain has been correctly described as the invisible crisis at the heart of contemporary life.
Despite stunning advances in other areas of medical science, no similar breakthrough in the treatment of chronic pain has resulted from an exclusive focus on the body. Dr James Alexander's young life was redefined by a tragic car accident in his late teens, and the chronic physical and emotional trauma inspired him to become a psychologist. Now pain-free, Dr Alexander has dedicated the last three decades of his life to helping others overcome similar challenges, specializing in the treatment of chronic pain and psychological trauma.
His success is proof that recovery from chronic pain is possible, and this guide offers a valuable resource for working toward that goal.
The recovery from chronic pain requires that we revisit and challenge the outdated attitudes and practices that have been used with little result. With the proliferation of medical and psychological research, for the first time we are at a point in history where these notions of pain recovery can be validated by research-based evidence.
For too long, Dr Alexander feels, we have been looking in all the wrong places. Specifically, the problem lies at the core of our culture, which still treats the physical and nonphysical aspects of the human as separate experiences.
This innovative program involves a journey of self-discovery, a new way to approach medical and psychological care of chronic pain, and advice on the most effective types of help to pursue.
Pathways to Pain Relief
By Frances Sommer Anderson; Eric Sherman; Forward by John E. Sarno, M.D.
Print Length: 232 pages
Publication Date: Januarary 21, 2013
Based upon the pioneering work of John E. Sarno, MD, Pathways to Pain Relief offers the stories of seventeen patients who recovered from back pain, sciatica, and other pain disorders which were emotional in origin…. These stories are shared to help people searching for relief from pain and those who support them.
Written by two therapists who worked with Dr. Sarno for over 30 years, and including input from their patients, Pathways to Pain Relief offers ideas and inspiration to explore the emotional circumstances related to the development of pain…. For those who have read Dr. Sarno’s work, about 25% find that psychotherapy is essential for success. Pathways to Pain Relief provides greater depth about the emotional and therapeutic aspects of recovery through psychotherapy. These innovative concepts have already produced gratifying results for thousands of patients suffering from psychophysiologic pain disorders.
Childhood Disrupted
By Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Print Length: 305 pages
Publication Date: July 7, 2015
Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, but it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall well-being. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents’ chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical “fingerprints” on our brains.
When children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering the body’s chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently resetting children’s stress response to “high,” which in turn can have a devastating impact on their mental and physical health as they grow up.
Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk. “Groundbreaking” (Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance) in its research, inspiring in its clarity, Childhood Disrupted explains how you can reset your biology—and help your loved ones find ways to heal. “A truly important gift of understanding—illuminates the heartbreaking costs of childhood trauma and like good medicine offers the promising science of healing and prevention” (Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart).
Chronic Pain: Your Key to Recovery
By Georgie Oldfield, MCSP
Print Length: 209 pages
Publication Date: December 11, 2015
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, and even debilitating pain, can frequently be caused by our brain in response to repressed emotions as a result of current and even past experiences.
This process is at the root of many common complaints, including back pain, sciatica, migraines, fibromyalgia, repetitive strain injuries, digestive disorders and many medically unexplained symptoms. This self-empowering book explains research findings, describes dozens of case studies and provides practical tools to help you identify the cause of your pain and puts you on the path that leads to relief once and for all.
The Divided Mind
By John E. Sarno, M.D.
Print Length: 400 pages
Publication Date: March 27, 2007
The Divided Mind is the crowning achievement of Dr. John E. Sarno's distinguished career as a groundbreaking medical pioneer, going beyond pain to address the entire spectrum of psychosomatic (mindbody) disorders.
The interaction between the generally reasonable, rational, ethical, moral conscious mind and the repressed feelings of emotional pain, hurt, sadness, and anger characteristic of the unconscious mind appears to be the basis for mindbody disorders. The Divided Mind traces the history of psychosomatic medicine, including Freud's crucial role, and describes the psychology responsible for the broad range of psychosomatic illness. The failure of medicine's practitioners to recognize and appropriately treat mindbody disorders has produced public health and economic problems of major proportions in the United States.
One of the most important aspects of psychosomatic phenomena is that knowledge and awareness of the process clearly have healing powers. Thousands of people have become pain-free simply by reading Dr. Sarno's previous books. How and why this happens is a fascinating story, and is revealed in The Divided Mind.
Unlearn Your Anxiety and Depression
By Howard Schubiner, M.D.
Print Length: 477 pages
Publication Date: July 18, 2017
Cutting-edge research shows that stressful or traumatic life events can create patterns in the brain that may be advantageous at first, but, in the long run, can pose barriers to achieving emotional health. Dr. Schubiner has developed a unique program to help you understand whether this model applies to you and show you how to reverse these patterns that have led to anxiety or depression. The program in this book will guide readers through a step-by-step approach to recovery. The techniques that are used include a new understanding of the symptoms, powerful behavioral interventions, emotional processing, therapeutic writing, meditation, and everything else needed to unlearn your anxiety and depression.