Approximately 21% of the US adult population—about 51.6 million people—experienced chronic pain during 2021.1 We tend to experience pain in terms of its intensity (how badly it hurts); and people with chronic pain also often experience depression, anxiety, and anger; and many withdraw from work, recreation, and social activities. So, psychological treatments for chronic pain are both important and timely.
Nell Norman-Nott (University of New South Wales) and her colleagues recently performed a meta-analysis (a robust statistical procedure in which the results of several studies are pooled into one set of findings) of 8 studies in which groups of people with chronic pain had received instruction in emotion regulation.2 Emotion regulation is a set of skills—such as awareness and acceptance of our emotions, awareness of our emotional triggers, and the ability to express emotions in appropriate and effective ways—that help us to influence our own emotional states for the better. The 8 studies included a total of 902 adult participants with musculoskeletal pain, fibromyalgia, chronic urogenital pain, chronic headaches, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic irritable bowel syndrome, who had been assigned either to an emotion-regulation skills-focused (ERSF) experience or a control group (waiting list or “treatment as usual”).
Results showed that ERSF treatment lowered both subjective pain intensity and depression. These effects were not “huge,” but they were large enough to be both statistically significant and clinically meaningful. This suggests a) that learning ER skills—and quite probably acquiring the disposition—to practice emotional self-regulation, can help to reduce people’s experience of pain intensity and negative emotions, and b) that psychotherapy for people with chronic pain might be enhanced by incorporating discussions about ER skills, ways of practicing them in everyday life, and ongoing reviews of benefits they have yielded.
References
1Rikard SM, Strahan AE, Schmit KM, Guy GP Jr.. Chronic Pain Among Adults — United States, 2019–2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly
Rep 2023;72:379–385. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7215a1
2Norman, N. N., Hesam, S. N., Wewege, M. A., Rizzo, R. R. N., Cashin, A. G., Wilks, C. R., Quidé, Y., McAuley, J. H., & Gustin, S. M. (2024).
Emotion regulation skills‐focused interventions for chronic pain: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. European Journal of Pain. https://doi-org.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/10.1002/ejp.2268
© Mary E. Procidano 2024. Do not copy, repost, or distribute without permission.