Your pain is real.
Being offered psychological support does not mean that pain is imaginary, exaggerated or “all in your head”.
Persistent pain is shaped by many interacting biological, psychological and social factors. Even when treatment cannot remove its physical cause, it is possible to work with the ways pain affects daily life, emotional wellbeing and the nervous system’s response to threat.
What pain psychology can help with
Living with pain can create understandable cycles: pain disrupts sleep; exhaustion reduces coping; worry increases vigilance; fear leads to avoiding activity; and life gradually becomes narrower. Therapy offers a compassionate place to understand these patterns and experiment with different responses.
Depending on your needs, Annie may draw on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Compassion Focused Therapy to help you respond to difficult experiences with greater flexibility and reconnect with personally meaningful activity.
What working together may involve
- Understanding your story. Exploring the pain journey, what has changed and what you most want help with.
- Building a shared formulation. Making sense of the patterns affecting distress and quality of life.
- Practising new responses. Developing skills and compassionate experiments tailored to your circumstances.
- Reviewing what helps. Tracking progress by what matters to you, not only by pain intensity.
Questions people often ask
Does pain psychology mean the pain is in my head?
No. Persistent pain is real. Psychological therapy recognises the interaction between the body, nervous system, thoughts, emotions, behaviour and life circumstances. It focuses on reducing distress and helping life become less dominated by pain.
Can therapy cure chronic pain?
Psychological therapy does not promise to remove an underlying physical cause or cure pain. It can help with its emotional and practical impact, unhelpful cycles, fear and avoidance, and the pursuit of a meaningful life alongside symptoms.
Can I have therapy during a flare-up?
Online sessions can make therapy more accessible when travel or mobility is difficult. Annie can discuss reasonable pacing and whether online work is suitable for you.
What happens in an assessment?
An initial assessment explores your pain journey, its impact, current difficulties, strengths, priorities and hopes for therapy. Annie will then discuss whether and how working together may help.
For general clinical information, see the NICE guideline on chronic pain. This page is educational and does not provide individual medical advice.