Healing Beyond the Hurt: A Neurobiological Approach to Treating Chronic Pain and Illness with Kate Truitt

Unlocking Resilience in Chronic Pain Management

According to the Centers for Disease Control, chronic pain affects at least 1 in 5 people, and 6 in 10 live with a chronic condition. The physical and emotional toll this has on individuals can profoundly impact their mental health.

As therapists, we have a powerful opportunity to help clients living with chronic pain or illness reclaim a sense of agency and self that is often lost amidst the complexities of medical systems and misdiagnoses.

Led by trauma and resilience expert Kate Truitt, PhD, this live online workshop explores how pain transcends the physical and impacts emotional well-being. It also highlights the brain’s crucial role in pain perception and resilience building.

Neurobiology of Chronic Pain and Illness

We’ll begin by examining the brain’s role in processing chronic pain and illness. We’ll look at how the emotional experience of living with chronic conditions can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed and paralyzed—for both the therapist and the client.

This ‘stuck’ feeling reflects the role of the survival brain, particularly the amygdala, in processing the somatic (and often traumatic) encodings of pain and illness. And because the amygdala processes information four times faster than the cognitive brain, it means that conventional ‘talk’ therapies may be less effective when the amygdala is activated. That’s why a targeted, neurobiological approach is vital to fulfill our goal of facilitating healing and growth.

The Fear Avoidance Model of Pain

Next, we’ll discover how stress encodings trigger a cycle of tension, fear, and inflammation that exacerbates pain.

Leveraging the Fear Avoidance Model of Pain (Lethem et al., 1983), we’ll identify strategies to break this cycle. By establishing this neurobiological toolkit of interventions, you can begin integrating brain-based approaches with your existing practices, allowing you to harness neuroplasticity for both healing, stress management, and resilient growth.

This multi-faceted approach not only targets traumatic encodings at their neural roots, but also aligns with enhancing self-empowerment and self-compassion for clients navigating chronic pain.

Practical Applications for Therapists

Many people with chronic pain also exhibit symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse disorders (Guidi et al, 2020). This makes it imperative for therapists to approach chronic pain with an arsenal of sophisticated tools. And these tools must go beyond the cognitive. They need to engage the hub of chronic pain (the limbic system) through its primary language of emotion and sensation.

Recent advances have also identified the significant role of gentle touch in pain relief, offering therapists a non-invasive, neurobiologically informed intervention (Hodgson et al., 2020; Hodgson et al., 2023; Sumich et al., 2022).

This course also includes a session on the practical application of mindful touch and the engagement of C-tactile fibers, including the Self-Havening Touch and SNAP Protocol. This opens new avenues for therapists in building resilience and empowerment, which is so crucial for clients coping with chronic pain.

Key Topics Covered:

• The brain’s role in pain perception
• The amygdala’s impact on treatment efficacy
• Strategies for identifying stress encodings
• Techniques for harnessing neuroplasticity
• Understanding and utilizing C-tactile fibers
• Implementing mindful touch practices such as the Self-Havening Touch and SNAP Protocol

Course Outcomes

This course will equip you with a neurobiological toolkit of evidence-based, brain-centered, healing strategies to help clients navigate chronic pain with greater resilience and empowerment.

Join us to transform your therapeutic approach and make a profound impact on your clients’ journey toward a thriving, resilient life.

• Practice techniques to improve therapeutic outcomes in the treatment of chronic conditions through incorporating neuroscience into treatment.
• Discuss the role of the amygdala in symptom maintenance.
• Identify the key aspects of the Fear Avoidance Model of Pain and how it impacts the experience of pain and chronic conditions.
• Demonstrate understanding of the impact of trauma encodings on information processing.
• Be able to effectively and appropriately utilize the Havening Touch and SNAP Protocol to address traumatic encodings connected to pain and illness symptoms.
• Build self-efficacy through the use of the foundational Healing In Your Hands protocols for in-therapy and out-of-therapy to support clients in developing compassionate relationship with themselves.

This training offers 6 hours of direct contact (not counting breaks or lunch). It is the participant’s responsibility to check with their individual state boards/regulatory body to verify CE requirements for their license to practice.

Attendees watching the previously recorded/on-demand version must complete a Post-Webinar Quiz with a passing grade of at least 80% to verify their attendance and receive their Certificate of Participation.

The Certificate of Participation includes:

• Name of participant.
• Title of training.
• Name of presenter plus their credentials.
• Number of hours of training.
• Date of training.
• Confirmation of a passing grade of at least 80% on the recorded on-demand version post-course quiz.

Get details about CE credits for Canadian and non-US international participants.

Get details about CE credits for US participants.

Please check with your regulatory body/organization to ensure that this certificate is sufficient proof for you to claim CE credits.