Chronic & Neuroplastic Pain
The pain is real. The nervous system may be why it continues
For some people, pain continues after appropriate medical evaluation even when ongoing injury or disease does not fully explain why symptoms persist.
Therapy can help address the fear, stress, emotional learning, and nervous-system processes that may be contributing to persistent pain and limiting your quality of life.
Therapy complements appropriate medical care; it does not replace it.
When pain starts running your life
This work may be relevant if:
- you avoid activities because you're afraid they'll increase the pain;
- you constantly monitor or analyze sensations;
- stress or emotional intensity seems to affect symptoms;
- you've tried many treatments without lasting relief;
- you've become less confident in what your body can safely do.
The goal isn't to convince yourself that the pain isn't real
It's to help determine whether the nervous system's alarm response may be part of what is keeping it going.
Pain is not “all in your head.”
It is also produced and interpreted through the brain and nervous system.
Sometimes the nervous system can become sensitized, so that ordinary sensations or movements continue to be interpreted as dangerous even after appropriate medical evaluation.
If the alarm system has learned danger, it may also be capable of learning greater safety.
A different way of working with persistent pain
Understand
Reduce Threat
Reduce Threat
Learn more about your pain pattern and identify factors that may increase or decrease the nervous system's sense of threat.
Reduce Threat
Reduce Threat
Reduce Threat
Work with fear, hypervigilance, avoidance, stress, emotional responses, and other processes that may be reinforcing the alarm.
Re-Engage
Reduce Threat
Re-Engage
Gradually build confidence in your body and return to activities, relationships, movement, and parts of life that pain has restricted.
The body and emotional life aren't separate systems.
Stress, trauma, fear, relationships, emotional suppression, and learned protective responses can sometimes influence how strongly the nervous system perceives threat.
That doesn't mean every pain condition is caused by emotion.
We explore these factors when they appear relevant.
Depending on your needs, the work may include Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), emotional processing, nervous-system regulation, behavioral approaches, and other therapeutic methods.
Could this approach be a fit?
It may be worth exploring if:
✓ You've had appropriate medical evaluation for the pain.
✓ Symptoms persist even though ongoing tissue damage does not fully explain them.
✓ Pain seems to change with stress, attention, context, emotion, movement, or fear.
✓ You've become caught in cycles of fear, avoidance, monitoring, or reduced activity.
✓ You're open to exploring how the brain and nervous system may influence the pain experience.
Not all chronic pain is neuroplastic.
New, changing, or medically concerning symptoms should be evaluated appropriately.
Therapy is not a substitute for medical diagnosis or treatment.
Pain has taken enough from your life.
If persistent pain has narrowed what you do,
where you go,
or how freely you live,
we can explore whether a nervous-system and mind-body approach may be useful.
Online therapy for Adults in Texas & Colorado
THE CLIENT PORTAL, EMAIL, PHONE NUMBER AND CONTACT FORMS ARE NOT TO BE USED FOR EMERGENCY SITUATIONS.
IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING AN EMERGENCY PLEASE CALL 988 OR GO TO THE NEAREST EMERGENCY ROOM.
CRISIS TEXT LINE: 741741 or CrisisTextLine.org
NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE: 800-273-8255
PES (AUSTIN & TRAVIS COUNTY): 512-472-4357
BLUEBONNET TRAILS (ROUND ROCK/GEORGETOWN): 800-841-1255
ROCK SPRINGS (GEORGETOWN/CEDAR PARK/KILLEEN) 512-819-9400
This website uses cookies.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.