How Your Attention Impacts the Placebo & Nocebo Effect
Placebo and nocebo are real physiological effects generated by our brains. They have the power to turn symptoms on, up, or down. Past research has found our expectations (positive and negative) are the…
Study: Work Psychological Factors Increase Risk for Back Pain
In the early 2000's, I started to think more deeply about chronic pain and other chronic symptoms that were not getting better through traditional physical therapy (physiotherapy). I was working in an…
Avoiding behaviors because of symptoms generalizes to other behaviors
I wanted to highlight how fear of movement because of a symptom (like pain) can generalize to other safe movements from the learning mechanisms in the brain. This is called avoidance generalization. This…
Trauma increases the risk of somatic symptoms by 2.7 times
This was a nice review paper looking at how psychological trauma affects functional somatic symptoms (FSS) in the body. Functional means no specific identifiable medical cause is found in the body. What…
Study: “Beliefs about the unacceptability of emotions and emotional suppression relate to worse outcomes in fibromyalgia”
This 2017 study looked at the relationship between beliefs about emotions, emotional suppression, and the global impact it has on fibromyalgia patients. Fibromyalgia is one of the conditions that has its…
Study: “The interaction between stress and chronic pain through the lens of threat learning.”
Chronic pain or chronic somatic symptoms are not the same as acute pain or acute somatic symptoms. Chronic symptoms are typically maladaptive and don't represent a true threat in the body (like an acute…
The role of insecure attachment & alexithymia in somatic symptoms
This was a nice study showing how having an insecure attachment to a parental figure from childhood becomes a risk factor to having medically unexplained somatic symptoms (MUSS) later in adulthood. The…
Is Muscuoloskeletal Pain or Arthritis Related to Changes in Weather?
Many people believe the weather has an impact on their pain or arthritis symptoms. This was a great review study looking at exactly that. Titled "Come rain or shine: Is weather a risk factor for musculoskeletal…
How many ACE’s (adverse childhood experiences) are associated with chronic disease?
There have been many studies linking the role of ACE's to chronic disease later in life. I wanted to share a 2023 study here that looked to identify a cut-point for the number of ACE's that would have…
Study: Lack of identifying emotions and its role in chronic pain
One of the areas in chronic pain that's not as talked about is the role of identifying emotions and how the lack of knowing what you are feeling emotionally may emerge physically as somatic symptoms. Difficulty…
