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What Is It? Behavioral Services are individual and group treatments that address an individual's potential for active living as well as their educational needs regarding their chronic pain and its management. Some patients require Behavioral Services like those offered in our multi-disciplinary program, which is our intensive, functional restoration program that individuals attend three days a week. For other patients, a less intensive approach is suitable. In these cases, the treatment team would recommend a combination of the following behavioral services we offer:
What Is Medical Counseling? Medical Counseling is a specialized form of individual therapy. This counseling addresses a patient's need for education about their wellness potential and encourages them to explore the impact that emotional factors have on their efforts to restore function. Reality Therapy is the foundation for Medical Counseling. Patients are taught that they can improve the way they feel physically and emotionally by taking certain steps. It should be noted that this therapy focuses on the present and does not rely upon insight into the role that early traumas may have had upon a patient's current state of physical and emotional functioning. In Medical Counseling patients will learn to understand the interdependence of the mind and body. With many chronic medical conditions, ones power lies not in what others can do for them, but what they can do for themselves. Medical counseling teaches that the mind must become our ally since the way we understand our health and physical abilities directly influences the way we function. Likewise, the way we function directly impacts our feelings of self worth. Thus, in addition to greater self-understanding, this therapy works for the individual by establishing realistic goals and behaviors. Identifying, and then letting go of, dysfunctional ways of thinking and living are the cornerstones of our Medical Counseling programs. What Is Group Pain Education? Group Pain Education sessions are led by licensed counselors and focus on ways to enable participants to better understand their chronic pain and its management. The meetings typically run as a series of twelve sixty-minute sessions over a four to eight week period. Session topics range from healthy lifestyles and stress management, to the interaction of mind and body. The objective is to shift the individual's focus from the problem of having chronic pain, to the solutions for effectively managing their medical condition. Group participants are given the opportunity to share their experiences as they attempt to deal with the fear, anger and depression that often accompanies chronic pain. The approach used by the counselor is reality-based therapy. This therapy challenges patients' misconceptions about their condition, prognosis and abilities. Long Term Narcotic Medication Screening Some individuals with chronic pain may be candidates for long term treatment with pain medication. Quite often, these medications carry with them risks of abuse or addiction. Because of these risks and the need to develop a trusting relationship between patients and the prescribing doctor, patients are referred for psychological evaluation prior to beginning long term pain medication management. The evaluation addresses addiction predisposition and history, prior psychiatric history and a mental status examination. Recommendations regarding the psychological appropriateness of long term pain medication therapy are provided to the referring physician. Long Term Pain Medication Education Patients are taught that medicine is merely a tool that if properly used can improve function and well being. Without the will to transform unfortunate circumstances into opportunities for personal growth and self responsibility, the results of long term pain medication usage can prove disappointing for both the patient and the prescribing physician.
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