by Alan Brandis, Ph.D.

The brief article which I wrote for this website explaining the psychological approach to chronic pain management cannot begin to cover the extensive territory of psychological research into the causes and treatment of chronic pain conditions.

I understand that there are conflicting approaches which are promoted and used by members of the medical and psychological communities to alleviate the suffering of chronic pain patients, as is common in almost any area of medicine. I understand that if an individual feels that he or she has found an approach that works to alleviate his or her suffering, there will be a sense of loyalty to that approach, as there well should be.

I am happy to be provided with information about which I was not previously aware, and I welcome responses which attempt to do that. However, some of the responses to the previous page have been hostile and insulting, as though I just made up something with no personal experience or training to back it up. I believe that this demonstrates that some individuals with chronic pain are, indeed, addicted to their medication or are getting some social or psychological gain out of it, as the level of defensiveness and emotionality with which they responded to my article was quite high.

I have included below some of the references to articles which I used to develop a talk on assessment and treatment of chronic pain, which I have given to the medical staffs of several hospitals. Before you react to my discussion of chronic pain with blind criticism or insult, please seek out and read the following articles. Then we can perhaps have a meaningful discourse.

When a summary or abstract is included in the publication, I have reproduced it here.

Roberts, Alan H. ”The Operant Approach to the Management of Pain and Excess Disability.”. In Holzman, D. and Turk, D., Pain Management: A Handbook of Psychological Treatment Approaches. 1986; Pergamon Press, NY.