Psychological Approaches to Pain Management

Original Editor - Scott Buxton

Top Contributors - Scott Buxton, Admin, Evan Thomas, Lauren Lopez, Kim Jackson, Vidya Acharya, 127.0.0.1, WikiSysop and Tolulope Adeniji

Pain Management

What is Pain Management?

Pain management is an area of modern medicine which utilises the multi-disciplinary team to help ease the pain and suffering of patients living with long-term pain to improve their quality of life. Medicine is usually the first port of call to manage pain, however, when pain in not responsive to medication, or resistant to treatment, or persists after healing has occurred and an exact cause of the pain has not been found alternative treatment or a combined approach can be used. 

The alternative to medicine or combined approaches to pain management are broad and each of which can be based upon different paradigms of understanding pain. The different approaches come from the wide range of healthcare professionals unique treatments towards pain management, not only limited to Mental-Health or Psychiatrists but can include Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Nurse Practitioners, Medics, Nuse Specialists and Massage Therapists.

Different Types of Management/Treatment

The techniques these professionals use can be and not limited to: (This list is not exhaustive and please add more!)

• Patient Education
• Operant Conditioning Approaches
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
• Distraction
• Classical Conditioning Approaches
• Social Support Methods
• Relaxation Methods
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• Hypnosis
• Biofeedback