Positive Chronic Pain Management Outcomes Require Coping with Denial

Two Antidotes for Denial:

1. Peaceful Acceptance and

2. Problem Solving with Authentic Action

Acceptance is a peaceful acknowledgement of the truth. If you can calmly face the problem, acknowledge the truth about what is going on, and accept that it is happening to you, you can then develop a way for handling the situation. The person who has accepted the truth of a serious problem has the ability to honestly affirm to themselves: "I have a serious problem! I am responsible for dealing with it! I'm willing to learn how!"

Problem Solving is a system for finding solutions to your problems. Effective problem solving systems involve identification and clarification of your problems, identifying and projecting the logical consequences of alternatives, deciding which alternative to use, taking action, and evaluating the outcome. By recognizing and accepting the problem and developing an effective problem solving plan, your need to use denial will go down because your ability to manage your problems will go up.

This was the reason I teamed up with Terry Gorski and Jennifer Messier to write the Denial Management Counseling (DMC) for Effective Pain Management Workbook that could be a helpful resource for some of you reading this Blog. I believe that learning to identify and manage denial is a necessary first step for people living with chronic pain who want to learn how to develop and implement an effective pain management plan.

The DMC/Pain Workbook is designed for people who have experienced significant problems related to living with chronic pain, but who honestly don’t believe—or don’t want to believe—that their decisions and behaviors are undermining what could be an effective pain management plan. It can be one important tool to help someone identify and learn to manage their inner saboteur.

To learn more about chronic pain management and denial please check out my article From Denial to Effective Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you'd like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I'm very excited to announce we are presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on August 5-7, 2010. To learn more about this and my other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website http://www.addiction-free.com/ If you are working with people in chronic pain or are undergoing chronic pain management and have any resistance or denial and want to learn how to develop a plan for helping to identify and manage denial please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Denial Management Counseling for Effective Pain Management Workbook. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.