Controlling your emotions could also relieve your pain. An experiment where chronic pain patients learned to turn down negative emotions through a combination of sessions with an online therapist with homework showed significant success easing physical suffering, according to an article in the journal JAMA Network Open.
"Beyond its sensory experience, chronic pain is an intrinsically emotional experience associated with heightened negative emotions, including anger, worry, and low mood, alongside a diminished capacity to regulate emotions,” according to the paper.
The papers’ authors wrote that this may be the first experiment to focus primarily on emotional regulation for pain management.
Chronic Pain and Emotion Regulation
Pain is officially considered chronic if it lasts more than 3 months. That definition applies to about 20 percent to 30 percent of the population that experiences pain. Although most people first experience pain as a physical sensation, it is also tied closely to emotions.
The question the researchers wanted to answer was, if you could control the emotions that sprang from the pain, could you also ease the primary physical suffering? This approach is known as dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). Previous research had shown that techniques to change thought patterns — cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) — did not help relieve pain.
Besides focusing on emotions instead of thoughts or physical sensations, the study was unique in another way. It employed a hybrid approach to treatment that included group sessions with a therapist via Zoom, a handbook with worksheets, and a mobile app that helps build skills for better emotional regulation.
To study the approach’s efficacy, a team of researchers in Australia divided chronic pain sufferers into two groups. About half used the hybrid DBT treatment, while the other half continued with their normal pain management regime.
Read More: Chronic Pain Makes You Think Differently
Reducing Pain and Depression
The results showed promise — but also that the approach takes time. After nine weeks, patients showed better command of their feelings, with “[…] a significantly greater reduction in emotion dysregulation,” according to the paper.
At 21 weeks, the effects were stronger and more widespread, with notable reductions in pain and depression levels. The treatment had lighter impacts on reducing stress, decreasing anxiety, and improving sleep quality.
While the study is too small to represent a full approval of DBT, the results show that the technique is worth exploring — both in terms of further research, as well as integration into clinical practice. Some doctors have already begun targeting emotional dysregulation as one of several strategies in treating chronic pain patients. This study could both help expand the approach as well as intensify it.
That certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Read More: Those With Chronic Pain More Likely to Have Suicidal Thoughts
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
JAMA Network Open. Online Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for Emotion Dysregulation in People With Chronic Pain
Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
