Reversing Chronic Pain

Book excerpt: Reversing Chronic Pain offers a dynamic framework for joining body and mind to speed the healing of traumatic pain from the body level up. Each chapter presents a body-centered skill set that can be mastered through a broad menu of practice exercises. The resulting interlinked somatic building blocks help readers shift from physical pain to body awareness, and from unstoppable suffering to heartfelt connection and peace. Building on the AIDS cocktail approach that reflects the fact that chronic pain is complex and no one tactic is likely to solve the problem, renowned expert Maggie Phillips presents a 10-1 pain plan comprised of easy strategies based on somatic experience. Even if the reader’s pain is perceived as a “10” at the onset of the program, with 10 being intolerable, the somatic building blocks help shift the pain one point at a time until it gradually diminishes to “1” or even “zero.” Showing how the common professional interventions—medication, physical therapy, acupuncture, biofeedback—may be more harmful than healing, Reversing Chronic Pain stresses self-treatment throughout, involving sufferers in attaining lives not simply endured but actively enjoyed.