hi everybody. I'm here today with a colleague of mine. she's a psychologist from the United
Kingdom, and she practices in pain management, and she has so much to say about pain management.
welcome Harbinder! thank you Andrea. thank you for having me today. you're welcome. can you tell
me about what you do? and where you practice? and what you do there? yeah, sure, so I'm a professor
of psychology, and I split my work with doing research, and so trying to help people live better
with their pain, so developing science and testing different management strategies, to increase the
evidence, so we can help inform clinicians that are working with. so you are scientist
in Psychology, and psychology of Pain, yeah, so you try to find new ways that people can manage
their pain, and why is this important? to manage pain? to have a psychologist doing this type of
work? it's a really good question. so for pain it we know it's beyond it goes beyond the physical
sensation of pain. and it's a long-term condition. when we say chronic pain, we mean long-term pain,
and for a lot of people that have to live with it, for day in and day out, it can impact so
many other parts of their life, so beyond the physical body, it can impact relationships,
it can impact who they are, their identity, it can impact emotions, it can impact whether
someone's able to do their work, and fulfill their roles, whether it's within the family
taking care of their children, and that impact can be devastating, and really change someone's life,
so just treating physical pain and missing everything else, that's why we need this
part of the health psychology. and that's what you do? that's what I do. so I'm a professor of
Health psychology. so I come in very much with the psychological aspect of pain management. and
working in a team with clinicians is important. so it's not in isolation. so they send people for
you to see from a pain clinic, or from another clinic, they ask you can you please help this
person? exactly, so I work with clinicians, pain Physicians, physiotherapists, nurses. how long
does it take for you? for how long do you work with these patients? is it a couple of sessions?
or is it a long time? yeah, so normally it's more, we need more than a couple of sessions,
but there's two kind of answers to that question, so one of them is the challenges we have and
quite often the psychologist will see a patient towards almost when they have exhausted all of the
Avenues of looking at trying to they really tried everything tried everything and then it's sort of
the end Resort let's see the psychologist and that could be quite challenging in times because I have
to try and build that relationship, or trust with with my patient, and explain why psychology is
important, because actually it's about managing pain, and helping you to have the best quality
of life that that you do, that it's possible, that it's possible, and in terms of sessions,
like typically we see them in a pain management program they vary in length, but they could be
two or three sessions over several weeks, because again that helps us to build that relationship
and explore all the different complexities, yeah, so would you say that it would be better if those
patients have come to you earlier, much earlier in their journey of chronic pain instead of being the
last resort? absolutely, I think you know that way we are we are genuinely working as a team,
and we can explore all the management skills at the beginning and try and help people to start
implementing those. and what is that you teach? what is that you do with them and for them? and
you teach them that? it's I know it's a long, yes it's a lot that you do can you summarize for us
a few things that you teach them? yeah sure, so the first thing we help patients do is to explore
and when I mean explore it's try and gain an understanding of the impact the pain is having on
them, it's quite often patients may not realize, because they're living in this turmoil of Life,
lots of things happening and when we start to break down, okay let's look at you,
and let's look at all the different elements, it helps them join the dots, it helps them realize
actually they didn't notice that it was the pain impacting. it's you know? quite central to
everything that's going on, and then, we employ different techniques so it might be that we
challenge more of the thought processes, you know, what what do you feel, and what do you think? and
how is that affecting your behavior? and and these might have turned into habits over time,
so we try and perhaps adjust those and rationalize some thinking, that's great, and quite often it's
it's a lot about identity, and it's very easy to lose who you are, because the pain takes over,
so I sometimes say to patients it's not about going back to your old identity,
instead let's rebuild who you are, so important rebuild your life, and pain is a part of this
life, but it doesn't mean it drives your life, and that's it's a hard concept to understand,
but it's something that we work on, believe that that's possible, yeah, yeah, but it's it's about
living well with the pain, and we know it can be done, and this is where the scientific side of me,
we saw the patients getting there, changing their life, so we want to motivate a new patient that
comes to us, so it is possible, I've seen a lot of people like you, and who turned their life
to the other side, and uh, yeah, yeah and it's very challenging, it's not easy the journey isn't
easy, it's not a straightforward, it is pretty much like this, yeah, and we normalize that so
we say it's okay for that to happen but we're there to support we're there to see you through
the Journey, we're there to give you the skills you need, we're there as a sounding board as well,
and one of the other elements is when we talk about support it's the family Network, so bring
your, bring the family together, families, yeah bring in your carers, bring in your friends,
and because they're a part of your journey,y you're talking to them only one hour there,
but their friends their family, are there can support them all the time, exactly because quite
often communication is the one thing that's broken down. how do you explain when you have pain? how
do you say I'm not having a good day today? you know if you've committed to something with your
family but actually you're not feeling quite up to it. you've had a bit of a flare up the day before
you need a break, but how do you communicate that without feeling guilty, without feeling
like you're letting people down? so tell me a little your your profession is fascinating,
but there might be some challenges, and some rewarding experiences, can you can you share
with us some of your most challenges that you have and and also some rewards that you have
from your profession? yeah, sure so I think the most challenging aspect of my profession is a
misconception of what psychology is, and to be honest the first sessions, I have is normally
going over that and sort of, you know, all these kind of misconceptions that people have. one of
them that psychologist means the pains in my mind, it's not real, oh it's not real, I'm not
being believed, my clinician doesn't believe me, so it can affect the relationship there as well,
and which is why it's really important that I have the time to explain why psychology,
and why they've been referred to me, and how we can help build that quality of life, and I think
what's really rewarding, is seeing people change through the Journey, yeah and really seeing them
have that hope again because quite often a lot of people lose the hope, and when we talk about
acceptance, It's not giving in, it doesn't mean I give up my life and the pain is taken over,
it's learning to define acceptance, and learning your values, and being able to live with the pain,
yes excellent, is there anything else that you like to tell our audience today? yeah I just think
in terms of managing pain is not to give up, there are you know, people like myself and yourself and
great clinicians and teams and we work really hard behind the scenes with our science, as well as our
clinical practice, to really help and hopefully give the message that you can live while with
your pain, it's very challenging but you know? we are here to help, thank you very much, thank you!