Acceptance And Commitment Therapy For Chronic Pain

In this lesson, you will learn how your relationship with language contributes to your pain experience. The lesson goes through how your brain processes language and how language causes you to store memory. It provides examples of how the different language people have used with you, and the different things you have heard, have impacted your pain experience.

In lesson two, we learn all about the ACT concept, psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is defined as well as how it can be helpful for chronic pain. You will also be led through a meditation that allows you to practice being psychologically flexible.

In lesson three, we look at how you have been avoiding your pain and how you have been accepting of your pain. We discuss different types of avoidance and look at how avoidance can be beneficial and not so beneficial. The lesson ends with a meditation to help you practice gentle acceptance of your pain.

In lesson four, we go through what values are and the difference between values and goals. We also discuss the importance of finding your values in order to live a life according to them when living life with chronic pain. We then go through a few different exercises to help you find your values.

In lesson five, we go through how we can look at our thoughts, allowing them to come and go without impacting our behavior. We discuss the difference between clean and dirty pain, and how each of these impact our thoughts. We then go through some meditative, visualization exercises to help you discover your clean and dirty pain, and unhook from your thoughts.

In lesson six, we dive into what it means to accept your pain, and what it doesn't mean. We go through an exercise that allows you to see how willing you are to live with your pain experiences in service of doing what you love. The lesson ends with a meditation to bring awareness to your pain monster.

In the final lesson, we look at how you can take committed action by using acceptance and commitment therapy in your daily life. We discuss what committed action is and end with a committed action exercise to set yourself up with a goal you can take into the future.