Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

November 28, 2019 By Admin

Approaches to Treating Chronic Pain Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Approaches to Treating Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is one of the most common and costly physical conditions in the United States. The following approaches have proven to be somewhat effective in reducing personal suffering from chronic pain. Although some of these can be practiced on your own, it is wise to work with a pain specialist, preferably one who does not count 100% on pain medications. Nerve, cancer, and phantom limb pain may be more difficult to improve. Always be cautious when self-administering any pain intervention. Some of the same interventions may also help to reduce psychological/emotional pain; this may be true as an integrated aspect of pain or as a stand-alone condition. Emotional pain and suffering is often associated with aggravated physical pain.  Here is the list. If you are unfamiliar with these, you may need to Google them. Google Professionals may be more helpful.

  1. Cognitive distraction techniques
  2. Mediating self-talk
  3. Safe place imagery
  4. Happy place imagery
  5. Shifting perceptual attention away from the pain
  6. Changing sensory perception about the pain – for example, what does the pain look like, smell like, etc.
  7. Specific meditation and yoga interventions
  8. Noticing very small changes in perception of pain via changing locations in the body or in and outside of painful areas
  9. Intense focused attention on sensory objects around you – outside of you
  10. Guided visualization
  11. Imaginal numbing
  12. De-centering skills – MBCT
  13. Muscular relaxation skills
  14. Conscious dissociation (difficult to do)
  15. Regular practice of sensory manipulation of the painful area – size, location, shape, color, localization, density, temperature , etc.
  16. Use of Wolpe’s Subjective Units of Discomfort Scale – from 1 to 100 how bad is the pain before and after doing interventions?
  17. Use of Quintiliani’s Subjective Units of Pleasure Scale – from 1 to 100 how much does the pan improve after interventions? This scale may best fit safe place and happy place interventions.
  18. Skilled chiropractic and/or physical therapy
  19. Last caution: Pain in any form is not something to play around with; best to work with a trained and experienced professional.
  20. This post will be followed by one that deals with suggestive and quasi-hypnotic interventions in pain.

 

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton SanghaChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon

Filed Under: Chronic Pain, Emotional Pain, Featured, Psychological Pain, Quintliani's Subjective Units of Pleasure Scale Tagged With: CHRONIC PAIN, EMOTIONAL PAIN, PSYCHOLOGICAL PAIN

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Contemplative Practices – Affirmative Self-Inquiry Contemplation and affirmative self-inquiry may be helpful in improving your awareness of your better parts of self – your positive strengths and traits.  Our self-critical mind often causes us to spend far too much time on critical, negative thinking about ourselves and about others.  The practice below may be helpful […]

Mindful Happiness:   Joy is Within Reach – It is Up to You to Choose It! We all live in a very troubled world with lots of greed, hate, warfare, and danger. Many of us use distractions (addictions, cell phone habits, eating, gathering, games, etc.) to make it through the days. This is true!  However, […]

Practice:  Mindful Actions to Improve YOUR Self-Esteem Improving Your Awareness with Practice Remain mindfully aware of the content and meta-cognition regarding the “speaking” of your inner, self-conscious critic.  Note what trends appear in the conversation. Remain mindfully aware of the reactions your mind and body experience regarding the activity of your inner self-critic in dealing […]

COVID-19 Brings Higher Stress and Emotion Dysregulation The Book of Job notes “Man is born unto troubles as the sparks fly upward.” Current stress surveys indicate Americans are stressed out due to COVID-19 concerns, work stress (money needs), imbalance in life-work experience, and lack of support (social, emotional, financial).  The 2020 American Psychological Association national survey […]

Mindful Happiness – Happiness – Guided Imagery of Your Life This experience will include guided imagery and multi-sensory memory of happy experiences in your life.  At time, shadow experience may pop up, in which a happy memory has an unhappy component.  Your mindful concentration will be needed to remain on track with only the happy […]

Happiness Characteristics – Post #2 Below I will note a few key characteristics of experiences and attitudes associated with happiness. Do your best to experience some of these each day – as much as is possible. Here is the first list. Being Fully Alive to Experiences – Do your best to be fully involved in […]

Loss, Grief and Suffering in America By Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC Other than our nation’s suffering during The Civil War, The Great Depression, and World War II this past year has been one of the most stress-filled, fear-filled times in our history. Here is a list of the reasons behind it all: the COVID-19 […]

Mindful Walking Meditation: How to Walk by Thich Nhat Hanh – A Powerful Short Book of Wisdom In my opinion, Thich Nhat Hanh and The 14th Dalai Lama are the two most important and wise teachers of mindfulness, meditation, compassion, and Buddhism in the 21st century.  Below I will offer my interpretation of Thich Nhat Hanh’s […]

Attitudes of Gratitude Thoughts and Applications M. J. Ryan presents some interesting practices in the book, Attitudes of Gratitude (1999).  Here are some ideas. Hope you will practice some of them soon. As The 14th Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh suggest, we should always appreciate the preciousness and miracle of human life – our own life no matter what […]

Spirit Wars and “Spiritual Warfare” This post will discuss the topic and personal strategies.  Most content will relate to both physical realities and metaphorical meanings and categories. Since a person viewing their self as fighting a spiritual war most likely holds onto certain parts of self in this endeavor, it is highly unlikely that the […]

Expanded Lectio Divina for Self-Development In this post I will provide an expanded version of this process by combining information from Origen,  the Carthusian  Monk  Guigo II,   and  Augustine of Hippo.   The presented process of 12 steps may be used  to enhance internalization of sacred writing and/or to support internal healing of the participants. […]

More Characteristics of Happiness – Happiness #4 Here I will continue my posts about the common characteristics of happiness.  Here is the list. Keep an Open Mind – Maintaining an open mind opens up doorways to interesting things in the world, some of which may help you to become happier. Also, open-mindedness reduces inner tension […]

Mindfulness Expands the Art of Journal Writing T. Merton, J. Kerouc, I. Progoff, J. Upton, and others have helped to expand the art or journal writing practice.  This type of practice can become your mindfulness practice.  You will need to write on a daily basis (even if briefly), and you will need to be highly […]

Psychodynamics of Alliance – Therapeutic Relationship Enhancement This post includes basic considerations, processes, and clinical skills necessary for developing a strongly positive clinical alliance and therapeutic relationship in therapy.  Here the alliance is required for any substantial change in psychotherapy, and the therapeutic relationship rides the quality of the initial alliance to expand and inter-penetrate […]

Breath, Mindfulness and Liberation J. Goldstein, (2007).  in volume two of Abiding in Mindfulness – On Feelings… brings clear focus to the infinite importance of feelings – the sensation-based associations of various emotional and physical states. Via on-going and regular practice of mindfulness and contemplation we may access the four areas of human awareness: body, feelings, heart-mind, […]

Improving Client/Patient Collaboration  in Treatment To improve collaboration between you and your clients/patients, simply practice the following behaviors as your norms.  See the list below, and practice, practice, practice. Present with an attitude of helpfulness and authentic caring. Empathy and authentic concern are required. Recognize the reality that clients/patients are at different levels of readiness […]

Reminders for Your Psychological and Physical Health If you desire to be more compassionate with others and with yourself, remember the following. Be certain to ACT on the following. 1) Life is complete only with joy/happiness, neutral experiences, and suffering/pain.  These are the realities of human existence. These are the conditions of human life. Make […]

Expanded Information about Your Compassion Practices and Benefits Compassion Practice Tips and Exercises The Buddha noted that one should not dwell on the past, become too attached to future outcomes, but instead concentrate our mind only on the present moment of our experiences.  The Dalai Lama noted that compassion is a necessary condition for inner […]

Mindfulness and Concentration –  Experience Differences In this post I will explain some basic differences between mindfulness and concentration, both of which are required for effective meditation practice.  This will be the first of three posts dealing with what mindfulness and concentration are, how to experience them briefly in a body-based activity, and how to […]

Improving Your Self-Esteem – An Action Contemplation The UCLA Higher Education Research Institute’s surveys and V. Mamgain’s ideas about neoclassical economics of happiness help provide a means to deconstruct improved learning in higher education and also personal happiness in the process. According to the UCLA research surveys, higher education students want more spirituality and personal […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

MEDITATION EMPTINESS VERMONT SELF CARE ACTIVITY SELF MEDICATION ADDICTION MINDFUL HAPPINESS VIPASSANA MEDITATION SUFFERING PRACTICES DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI JOURNALING SELF COMPASSION MINDFULNESS SELF ANTHONY QUINTILIANI CLINICAL SUPERVISION COMPASSION TRAINING MINDFULNESS TRAINING SELF ESTEEM PSYCHOTHERAPY BRAIN BUDDHISM MBSR PRACTICE BREATHING TRAUMA ELEANOR R LIEBMAN CENTER HAPPINESS EXERCISES THERAPY. MEDITATION PRACTICE CONSCIOUSNESS MINDFUL MEDITATION VIPASSANA WALKING MEDITATION THICH NHAT HANH COVID-19 ACTIVITIES WISE MIND MINDFUL MINDFUL TRAINING ENLIGHTENMENT

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2022 · Mindful Happiness