Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or CBT) is a type of therapy used in the treatment of chronic pain. CBT works by training your brain over time to change negative statements into positive ones. It involves “catching” negative thoughts before they consume us or negatively impact our feelings, moods and actions. CBT is a way to calm ourselves when we start to feel a flare up or are having a bad pain day.
Applying CBT to Chronic Pain takes practice and patience and is not for everyone. If it is helpful for you, CBT can be another tool in your tool box to help cope with pain. For example, CBT helps you learn how to identify and address “automatic thoughts.” If you start feeling pain, some immediate automatic thoughts that might come to mind include: this will never end, I will never feel better, I am going to have to go to the hospital, or this will only get worse. It is easy for our brains to ignite such thoughts when we feel bad. This is where CBT can help us learn how to catch these thoughts and replace them with more hopeful statements. Hopeful replacement thoughts may include: I can get through this, I have succeeded in working through this before, this will end, and I have felt worse before and was able to get through.
CBT is helpful when you are having a bad day mentally or physically feeling bad. Improving your thought process can help calm your central nervous system and decrease pain signals. It will not take the pain away completely, but it can make it more bearable and inspire hope. CBT is best applied with a trained and seasoned therapist. She can help you identify triggers and negative thoughts and learn how to focus on statements of positivity so that you can live your best life possible even with chronic pain.
