Healing Chronic Pain Workshop

Please send a text message to Evan at 720-239-2313 to request a free phone consultation (up to 20 minutes) to determine whether this workshop may be a good fit for you.

Description:

This workshop (not therapy) is for adults with most forms of physical pain that have lasted longer than three months (i.e. chronic pain).

Participants must have already sought medical opinion and intervention, with no relief of pain or only partial relief of pain.

There will be limited time for optional sharing and discussion as the workshop is psychoeducational and not group therapy.

Goals:

• Update your knowledge about what pain is, how pain works, and why healing from chronic pain often requires an approach that is different from standard medical interventions.

• Learn and apply the Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) framework to your own chronic pain.

• Practice a technique that can interrupt the pain-fear cycle and reduce pain over time.

• Discover how emotions, behaviors, and personality features relate to pain.

• Learn how to change behaviors that may perpetuate chronic pain into behaviors that may heal chronic pain.

Investment:

$400 total, insurance not accepted
(This is approximately ten hours at $40/hour. For comparison, my rate for therapy is $170/hour. This workshop is deeply discounted as this is my first time offering the workshop.)

This workshop is limited to eight participants, so please get in touch soon. Text Evan at 720-239-2313.

Workshop Outline

Note: Content for this workshop is subject to change depending on the needs of the group.

While participant sharing is welcome during discussions, nobody will be required to share.

Session 1

• Introduction

• Discussion: Identity and how pain has changed our lives

• Guided self-reflection on beliefs about pain 

• What does recent scientific research say about pain? 

• What is pain reprocessing therapy (PRT)? 

Session 2

• What can vision, hearing, smell, and taste teach us about pain? 

• Creating an evidence list that supports healing

• Review barriers to healing

• Making small changes

Session 3

• Discussion: What we are learning about our symptoms

• Somatic tracking: A technique to retrain your brain

• Leaning into positive sensations

• Fuel for healing 

Session 4

• Discussion: Troubleshooting somatic tracking 

• Mastering the pivot

• The good avoidance list

• The Process

• Extinction bursts 

• Three steps forward, two steps back. 

Session 5

• How PRT can help with non-pain symptoms

• A new perspective on self-care

• Discussion: What we are learning about ourselves

Session 6

• Fear: conscious and unconscious

• Negative behavioral patterns

• Preoccupation

• Discussion: What we are learning about our path to healing

Session 7

• Discussion: Sharing insights, struggles, and successes with PRT

• What is self-compassion, and why does it matter?

• Self-compassion myths vs. realities

• How to develop a foundation of self-compassion

Session 8

• Discussion: Intensity

• Tending to our internal state

• Understanding relapse

• Relapse prevention

• Discussion: Continuing healing after this workshop

• Resources and next steps

• Closing