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It Starts in the Brain

ALL pain, no matter where you feel it in your body, is actually created by the brain. Nerves send messages to your brain, which processes this information and produces pain as a protective signal. Essentially, your brain is the command center, sending pain signals to where you feel them in your body.

Pain is Protective

While we may not welcome pain, it's worth remembering that it is designed to protect us. Pain is our body's built-in alarm system. Our brain can also produce pain when sensing an emotional or psychological threat. It can't differentiate very well between emotional and physical threat. All it sees is that your nervous system is on high-alert, so it wants to get you out of danger.

Neuroplastic Pain and Symptoms

Sometimes, our brains can keep sending pain signals long after our body has healed from injury or we are no longer in a stressful situation. This is what we call neuroplastic pain or symptoms. Neuroplastic pain happens when the brain's pain processing pathways get a bit overprotective. This type of pain can become chronic and often isn't directly linked to any structural injury or pathological cause.

Other names you may encounter for this kind of pain include: Psychogenic Pain, Psychosomatic Pain, Nociplastic Pain, Mind-Body Syndrome (MBS), Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS), Psychophysiologic Disorder (PPD), Functional Pain Syndrome, Central Sensitization, and Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD).

Figuring out whether the chronic pain or symptoms you're experiencing are neuroplastic can be complex and you should consult a medical professional to help you rule out structural and pathological causes. However, certain patterns or characteristics may indicate a neuroplastic origin:

• Inconsistent and shifting pain: Your pain may change in intensity, move around, or come and go unexpectedly, without a corresponding physical injury.
• Triggered by non-physical factors: Your symptoms might be initiated or worsened by emotional states, stress, weather conditions, or other non-physical triggers.
• Lack of physical evidence: Tests such as scans and exams do not show any clear physical cause for your persistent pain.
• Disproportionate pain: The intensity or duration of your pain is out of proportion to any injury you may have experienced.
• Complex symptom patterns: Experiencing multiple, diverse symptoms at the same time without any clear structural link between them.
• Resistance to conventional treatments: Lack of response to traditional medical treatments such as medications, physical therapy, or surgery.
• Emotional and personality factors: Traits like perfectionism, people-pleasing, or excessive worrying, which are linked to a constantly alert nervous system.
• Childhood adversity: Experiences of early adversity are correlated with long-term health issues such as chronic pain, anxiety, and depression.

There's no set number of criteria you have to meet. One of these descriptions might resonate with you, all of them, or none at all. This is why it's important to talk to a medical professional and rule out any structural causes before proceeding with mindbody work.

Our clinicians take a comprehensive and holistic approach to treating neuroplastic pain, focusing on understanding and addressing the underlying neural mechanisms that contribute to pain. Key components include:

• Education: Helping clients understand how the brain can learn to perceive pain even in the absence of physical injury, reducing fear and mystery around their pain.
• Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT): A therapeutic approach that aims to change the brain's response to pain signals, helping the brain process and reinterpret them correctly.
• Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET): Helps clients address and work through emotional factors that may contribute to chronic pain.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Addresses the psychological aspects of pain, helping clients identify and modify negative thoughts and behaviors.
• Diverse skillsets and modalities: Each clinician is trained in a variety of therapeutic modalities, offering a distinct set of skills tailored to each client's unique needs.
• Mindfulness and relaxation techniques: Help calm the nervous system and can be effective in reducing the intensity of pain.
• Ongoing evaluation and adaptation: Treatment plans are continuously assessed and adapted to fit the changing needs and progress of each client.

The Better Mind Center helps individuals reduce or completely overcome a variety of chronic symptoms. Our approach is especially effective for conditions where medical tests and imaging do not fully explain the pain or symptoms experienced.