You don’t know how you ended up here. It’s hard to remember the life you once had. You’ve been to endless medical appointments and maybe even have a long list of diagnoses but no-one has been able to help. Your world is getting smaller and smaller. You’ve given up the things you enjoy, one by one, as you have had to prioritise your work for fear of losing your job. Over time it feels like you have lost who you were, as if all you are now is your pain. Other people don’t understand, but how could they? It’s beginning to feel like a death sentence and you can’t see a way forward.
There is good news. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I have been where you are. For over 20 years I suffered with chronic migraines that affected every part of my life. Everyday I was either in pain, groggy from medication or both. Chronic migraines tainted so many precious memories and stole so much time from me and my family. I wasn’t the person I wanted to be. Having worked through this approach myself, I have reduced my migraines by 70% and reduced the medication I take significantly. I no longer worry about whether or not I will get a migraine, I make plans, enjoy my hobbies, eat and drink what I want and enjoy many many pain free days. I’ve reclaimed my life. And you could too.
Recent studies have shown that a wide range of chronic pain conditions including chronic back and neck pain, fibromyalgia symptoms, repetitive strain injury, headaches and migraines, and other forms of chronic pain are often not caused by structural abnormalities but are a result of learned neural pathways in the brain. This is known as neuroplastic pain (originally referred to as Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS)).
All pain is created in the brain. Normally when we injure ourselves, the body sends signals to the brain informing us of tissue damage, and we feel pain. But sometimes, the brain can get it wrong! Neuroplastic pain happens when the brain misinterprets safe messages from the body as if they were dangerous. In other words, neuroplastic pain is a false alarm. This isn’t to say that the pain isn’t real. All pain is real. But just as pain can be learned, it can also be unlearned.
I’m one of a small number of clinicians in the UK trained in Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a revolutionary and evidence based new treatment for chronic pain. What if you no longer have to manage your pain or learn to live with it – what if you could actually be free from it entirely?
Pain Reprocessing Therapy is a psychological approach that focuses on helping you retrain your brain so that it responds to the signals from your body properly, turning off the false alarm and subsequently breaking the cycle of chronic pain.
For many people with chronic pain, PRT is sufficient on its own to help them get back to the life they had before. For others, there may be additional factors involved in the onset and maintenance of their symptoms, such as trauma, personality traits or difficulty expressing their emotions and needs. As a Clinical Psychologist specialising in trauma, I can offer a truly individual approach, incorporating Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), as well as other psychological approaches where appropriate, to give you the best chance of success.
Not sure if you have neuroplastic pain? Take this quiz to find out.
Success Stories
Hear from others who have worked with me.
I am aware that not everyone can afford individual therapy and I am passionate about helping as many people as possible recover from chronic pain. I am currently building an online programme that would enable you to work through the treatment at your own pace and at a fraction of the price of individual therapy. There will also be the option of additional support from me following completion. If this is something that you would be interested in please sign up here and you will be the first to know when it is available.