2 personality traits associated with chronic pain from 120 years of research
Research has identified a pain personality that is common amongst people suffering from chronic pain. Dr. Sarno, who many of you know, also identified common personality traits that he saw in his patients who suffered from many types of chronic health ailments. What the researchers found when looking at data from the past 120 years was that there were 2 personality types commonly seen in those suffering from various types of chronic pain.
- Harm Avoidance- This personality type ‘refers to a tendency to be fearful, pessimistic, sensitive to criticism, and requiring high levels of re-assurance.’
- Low Self-Directedness- This personality ‘often manifests as difficulty with defining and setting meaningful goals, low motivation, and problems with adaptive coping.’
What we can take from these two personality types and what the research tells us is ‘harm avoidance reflects a tendency to developed conditioned fear responses.’ The authors ‘suggest that higher harm avoidance may create more vulnerability to developing a fear-avoidance response to chronic pain. Furthermore, lower self-directedness may contribute to keeping a sufferer within this vicious cycle of fear, avoidance and suffering.’
So the answer is we need to alter and modify these 2 personality types to move in the opposite direction for success in overcoming chronic pain conditions. For harm avoidance, we want to become less fearful, more optimistic, less sensitive to criticism (lower shame), and be able to re-assure ourselves through our own self-talk and perception. For low self-directedness, we want to set goals and then consistently move towards them with outcome independence, build motivation and determination, and know we can cope and handle any adversity, emotions, and symptoms that might arise as we move forward towards recovery.
Reach out if you need help in doing this. My job is to motivate you and remind you and encourage you and show you why and how you can modify and shift your personality to help you recover. Go to my website www.thepainpt.com to learn more.
