When Does Pain Become Chronic? Hello, my name is James Lowery with James Lowery Hypnotherapy where I, with the help of a medical provider, aid adults suffering with immune disorders in relieving the emotional stress surrounding their discomfort in order to achieve a better quality of life in as little as just one session. Today’s frequently asked question is: when does pain become chronic? Now, before I answer that question, I want to make it abundantly clear that the information I am providing is not to serve as a substitute for medical advice. My role as a hypnotherapist is to serve as an effective adjunct to those already receiving medical treatment who might need additional care. When does pain become chronic? The answer to that question is that ordinarily pain becomes chronic when it persists beyond three months. Now, my primary focus is to look at when pain becomes neuroplastic.
Now, if you have not heard the term neuroplastic pain before, it is when pain persists beyond the time it would ordinarily take the body to heal upon a given physical injury or supposed structural causation. If pain persists beyond this point, it becomes neuroplastic. It leads one to suspect that there are other factors at play beyond what would ordinarily be an ongoing structural or physical causation. The thing that pushes pain beyond a tolerable threshold in this way is fear. Now, I use the term fear as an umbrella term to more generally describe maladaptive psycho-emotional responses to one’s pain where one assesses one’s current condition and fears or assumes that it’s just as bad, if not worse, than when it first started. Based on that conclusion one fears or assumes that it will continue to get worse going into the future. This type of fear makes pain more apparent. When pain becomes more apparent, it increases or amplifies. When it increases or amplifies it brings on further emotional stress, which then, in turn, makes the pain more apparent, and so forth, and so forth. It becomes a vicious cycle. So how does one break out of this vicious cycle?
Through a branch of science known as psychoneuroimmunology which studies how the mind, the psyche, one’s neurology, and one’s nervous and immune systems all interact with and affect one another. At the core of psychoneuroimmunology, and its applications in the form of mind-body therapies, such as hypnotherapy, is looking at where attention is placed, the degree to which that attention is gathered and maintained, and the overall quality or emotional flavor of that attention. Mind-body therapies such as hypnotherapy aim to therapeutically effect attention in this way to help individuals break out of their vicious cycles and reestablish a healthy communication between their mind and their nervous and immune systems. Now you might be thinking to yourself, “But James, I’ve tried talk therapies before and it didn’t help. How is this different?” Most therapies aim to alter or bolster your conscious perception of the problem.
Let me ask you something. If you could consciously decide right now not to have the pain, the discomfort, the problem you are experiencing, it would only be reasonable to assume that you would consciously decide to do so. Would you not? If you could have consciously decided not to have taken on the pain, the discomfort, the problem whatsoever, again, it would only be fair to assume that you would consciously have decided to do so by now. Right? So the pain, the problem, the discomfort, they do not effectively exist in the conscious part of the mind. Rather the pain, the problem, the discomfort and the maladaptive psycho- emotional responses that surround them are more predominant in the unconscious part of the mind.
So, if you’re looking to adopt this kind of therapy in such a way that with the help of a medical provider aids you in relieving the emotional stress surrounding your discomfort and in achieving a better quality of life in as little as just one session. Then give me a call or book a free consultation at James Lowery Hypnotherapy. I’m always happy to help.