Beautiful post. It is great to find out where you are at these days. I was thinking about the SDPS as I saw some posts on social media, fond memories of that first one.
To adopt a position that suspends judgement of pain and fosters acceptance labels that fit into the binary good/bad are not helpful, IMHO. For example, I find labels such as castrophizing and maladaptive not helpful overall but that is what science has decided to use. Avoidance and fear is okay because it seems less judgemental. I do wonder if patients identify it as fear (of pain). I don't think I have heard many (if any) patients say they were afraid or fearful of pain. However plenty don't want to experience it and would like it to go away.
At the end of the day I think we should all accept, as a community, that these responses to pain are normal. That their are legitimate reasons why people avoid pain and in the absence of quality info and anirturing relationships, avoidance will persist.
Does approaching pain (not avoiding it) lead to it's resolution, most of the time. Yet for some it does not. However for those that don t experience relief, hopefully teaching them to make conscious decisions about what they want to approach vs avoid will lead to a life may be approached more fully with pain. In all my experience with this field that is about as simply as I can characterize things.
You too had positive impact on my work as an educator as I now incorporate patient panels into all of my classes. Students love this. It was seeing your advocacy work and conversations with you that led me to this.
We are all in this together. Thank you for continuing to write.
Beautiful post. It is great to find out where you are at these days. I was thinking about the SDPS as I saw some posts on social media, fond memories of that first one.
To adopt a position that suspends judgement of pain and fosters acceptance labels that fit into the binary good/bad are not helpful, IMHO. For example, I find labels such as castrophizing and maladaptive not helpful overall but that is what science has decided to use. Avoidance and fear is okay because it seems less judgemental. I do wonder if patients identify it as fear (of pain). I don't think I have heard many (if any) patients say they were afraid or fearful of pain. However plenty don't want to experience it and would like it to go away.
At the end of the day I think we should all accept, as a community, that these responses to pain are normal. That their are legitimate reasons why people avoid pain and in the absence of quality info and anirturing relationships, avoidance will persist.
Does approaching pain (not avoiding it) lead to it's resolution, most of the time. Yet for some it does not. However for those that don t experience relief, hopefully teaching them to make conscious decisions about what they want to approach vs avoid will lead to a life may be approached more fully with pain. In all my experience with this field that is about as simply as I can characterize things.
You too had positive impact on my work as an educator as I now incorporate patient panels into all of my classes. Students love this. It was seeing your advocacy work and conversations with you that led me to this.
We are all in this together. Thank you for continuing to write.
I lost all my labels - wow. Joletta you write so wonderfully and always make me think deeply!
Thank you for another beautiful post. Writing to understand is absolutely it, its a process of sense making and I'm so glad you share yours with us!
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