This episode may shock and surprise you. Pain isn’t always what we think it is.
We’re used to the idea that pain sensations accurately register physical disease or injury. But much research has found that some kinds of pain are actually alleviated by working on the brain, not the body.
Jennifer Johnson is a Mind-Body Chronic Pain Coach based in Seattle. Her chronic pain journey started 14 years ago, most days barely able to walk. After undertaking training on her mind and nervous system, she became pain-free and able to resume normal life. Then, as a coach, she took Howard Schubiner's practitioner training to qualify her in Pain Reprocessing Therapy, to support diverse clients in resolving their own chronic pain.
I loved this conversation for Jen’s open honesty about her story, the mind-bending information she shares, and the huge ray of hope she sheds for people in chronic pain.
This is an angle of Lifestyle Medicine that may be quite surprising to most, and I hope will be life changing for many.
Could your pain be susceptible to 'Mind-Body’ reprocessing? Here’s Jen's questionnaire to help you: https://www.thoughtbythoughthealing.com/thetest
Jen’s podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thought-by-thought-healing/id1632101059
Jen refers to Dr Howard Shubiner: https://unlearnyourpain.com/mind-body-syndrome/
I have found Alan Gordon’s book is a useful, easy-to-access introduction to this subject: https://www.curablehealth.com/books/alan-gordon/the-way-out-approach-to-healing-chronic-pain
The boot story Jen mentions can be found (with some difficulty, you need to buy access) as a report in the British Medical Journal: Fisher JP, Hassan DT, O’Connor N. Minerva. Br Med J 1995; 310:70.
There is a huge literature on pain. One useful, nuanced introductory article may be found here: Brodal, Per. "A neurobiologist’s attempt to understand persistent pain" Scandinavian Journal of Pain, vol. 15, no. 1, 2017, pp. 140-147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sjpain.2017.03.001