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Which comes first: Doing or knowing?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Received wisdom in cognitive behavioural therapy says that to change behaviour, a person must first change his or her thinking.  This has created a tension between those clinicians who emphasise the cognitive aspects of pain management – and those who focus on helping people with pain do more.  Should we educate and target cognitions, particularly those sticky core beliefs – or can we use behaviour change as a way to help the person make gains? The answer is, as you’d have guessed, not black and white.  In fact, as several authors and researchers have pointed out (see the references below for just two)...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 11, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Cognitive behavioral therapy Coping strategies Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Psychology Cognitive Behavioural Therapy mindfulness pain management Therapeutic app Source Type: blogs

Half of Americans Have Mental Health Problems, But Why?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Nearly half of Americans will experience mental health problems in their lives, according to a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. And about 25% of adults in America reported having a mental illness (defined as a diagnosable mental disorder that has substantially interfered with, or limited, one or more major life activities) in the past year, the agency says. What’s going on here? These are “unacceptably high levels,” says Ileana Arias, principal deputy director of the CDC. But the issue of why rates are so high is still a mystery. Could mental illness—blame toxins in the envi...
Source: Healthbolt - September 5, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Elizabeth Nolan Brown Tags: FEEL mental health acceptance depression Source Type: blogs

When To Accept That “The Beast” Is WinningEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Steve Jobs in 2010 It was a bombshell that shouldn’t have been unexpected. Steve Jobs resigning. Anyone who saw him knew he was sick and, just watching him on television, it was obvious to me he was getting sicker. When you get so thin, when your color is not good, when you are probably taking heavy duty drugs that have side effects, you certainly don’t feel good. And when you don’t feel good, it is tough to think clearly, and make decisions with certainty. That is not a good thing for the CEO of one of the most successful corporations. It is actually a tribute to his will that he carried on so long. Many of the rest...
Source: Better Health - September 5, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: AndrewSchorr Tags: Opinion acceptance Cancer Death Fight Giving Up Outlook Remission Resignation Stepping Down Steve Jobs Survival Terminal Condition Treatment Source Type: blogs

Self management – a very vexing definitionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Self management is one of those terms that is used to describe the aim of cognitive behavioural programmes for chronic pain. It’s even in my description of this blog! At the same time, it’s difficult to arrive at a definition of self management that “everyone” agrees upon. Self management can mean helping people to be “actively involved in their health care and to provide a variety of creative and individualized strategies to deal with their health problem in their daily life and ultimately to live as normally as possible despite their symptoms” (Zuffery & Schulz, 2009) – but ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - August 22, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain Coping Skills Coping strategies Pain conditions Resilience/Health acceptance biopsychosocial Cognitive Behavioural Therapy healthcare pain management self management treatment Source Type: blogs

On the Loss of a Cancer Blogger – guest postEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Since I began this blog, I have always wrestled with the question of how to handle Guest Posts of survivors that are not doing well.  Early on I even considered whether or not to publish the names and URL’s of blogs of folks that have passed away.  Last Wednesday I offered the difficult post by Alli, who was struggling with the inevitable issue of quality vs quantity of the time left us when our disease rises up and begins to beat down our last defenses. Now that I am working in a bone marrow transplant clinic and proudly wear my leukemia and transplant badges in order to give my patients hope, the editorial confli...
Source: Being Cancer Network - August 8, 2011 Category: Cancer Authors: admin Tags: Death Guest Post * Living with Cancer acceptance Grace Hospice Source Type: blogs

Using the Chronic Pain Acceptance QuestionnaireEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Over the past few months I’ve been using the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ-8) as part of a battery of questionnaires used at intake and outcome measures.  Along with the CPAQ-8, we use the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, the Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale, the Pain  Catastrophising Scale, Pain Self Efficacy Questionnaire, and Pain Disability Index. The CPAQ-8 consists of two subscales: Pain Willingness and Activity Engagement.  Together they measure “acceptance” or psychological flexibility associated with chronic pain. Let me pull this apart a bit.  Pain...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - July 24, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Assessment Chronic pain Coping Skills Coping strategies Interdisciplinary teams Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology Resilience Resilience/Health Source Type: blogs

Let’s Beat This Things – new blogEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This notice came to me in May – I think I was in hospital at the time.  Meg is a photographer and a breast cancer survivor.  She just started her blog last March.  I have excerpted a portion of a recent post for your edification. Last Wednesday, we celebrated Mike’s Uncle Johnny’s life at his funeral service and burial.  It was a very nice service and although the circumstances weren’t ideal, it was nice to see all of Mike’s family.  Unfortunately, coming from a pretty big family as well as marrying into a big family means that I have attended a lot of funerals in my twenty-nine years.  ...
Source: Being Cancer Network - June 24, 2011 Category: Cancer Authors: admin Tags: Death Guest Post * acceptance Breast cancer Source Type: blogs

Catastrophising and (maybe) what to do about it for subacute/chronic painEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study is also an excellent one for looking at process, or how people change over time using a daily diary method. The finding in this paper suggests that one way for helping people be more resilient and modify their tendency towards catastrophising might be to help them identify and then pursue positive experiences during each day.  Scheduling pleasant or enjoyable events as part of a daily routine is certainly something any clinician can do, and often those pleasant events can be physical, such as going for a walk, playing with the kids, or even doing some stretches. Finally (but not the final word!), a study by McK...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - May 9, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Assessment Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Cognitive skills Coping Skills Coping strategies Interdisciplinary teams Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology Research acceptance biopsycho Source Type: blogs

6 Tips for Living with an Autism Spectrum Disorder in CollegeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As Autism Awareness month continues, April is a time of transition for many high school seniors, as they learn what colleges and universities they got into. So it seems like an ideal time to talk about autism and college, and some tips to help with the transition. The excerpt below is from the book, Living Well on the Spectrum by author Valerie L. Gaus, Ph.D. The book is a self-help book that helps a person with an autism spectrum disorder identify life goals and the steps needed to achieve them. Read on for the excerpt… April is the month when most high school seniors receive their college acceptance letters and be...
Source: World of Psychology - April 12, 2011 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: John M Grohol PsyD Tags: Autism Children and Teens Disorders General Students Aftermath April Is Autism Awareness Month Asperger Autism Spectrum Disorder College acceptance Letters Colleges And Universities Diagnosis Emotional Crisis Excerpt Excerpt Fr Source Type: blogs

What is coping?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When we use the word ‘coping’, what do we mean? Recently, I’ve been reviewing the whole concept of coping in chronic pain.  I’m trying to establish how people with chronic pain view this term, and what they include in their repertoire of ways to cope.  My research is looking at the ways that people who cope well with their pain, and never need input from a chronic pain management team, do so.  And in doing this research, I’m hitting some conceptual snags. The thing is, coping as a concept isn’t defined all that well.  Some definitions refer to the outcome of coping: “he coped w...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - April 5, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills Coping strategies Interdisciplinary teams Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology Research biopsychosocia Source Type: blogs

Moodjuice!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I had a nice email from James Hardie from Moodjuice website, an NHS Scotland site developed for both health professionals and individuals to access self help resources. For patients, the site starts by saying “Emotional problems are often the mind and body’s way of saying that something needs to be changed in our life” - I like that!  I like the way the patient area is based on practical problems like housing, childcare, hobbies and interests, meeting people, relationships and so on. For professionals, the feature that really appeals to me is the “build your own resource” area.  This enables you...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - March 30, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Book reviews, site reviews Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Cognitive skills Coping Skills Coping strategies Education/CME News Occupational therapy Pain Pain conditions Professional topics Psycho Source Type: blogs

What do people expect when they get referred to a pain management centre?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study also found that many people didn’t feel they had been heard, or taken seriously prior to being referred. Participants in their study “needed to feel legitimated in the sick role, and part of the reason for wanting to know the cause of the pain was a desire to seek legitimacy in the eyes of others.” They made an interesting observation in that participants ranked the statement “I would like to have a better understanding of my pain” fifth on the list of 10 statements, and in the focus group discussion, identified having a diagnostic label as something different from having a better u...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - March 29, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Assessment Chronic pain Interdisciplinary teams Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology acceptance biopsychosocial coping coping strategies goals Health healthcare pain management R Source Type: blogs

Luck and Cancer – guest postEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Reprinted from LUNGevity, a Linked-In group: What is Luck? March 17th, 2011 – by Jill Feldman I have a wonderful husband, loving children, supportive family, thoughtful friends, a roof over my head, food on the table, great health insurance (very important in my family), etc.   For all that, I consider myself to be very fortunate, but am I lucky? When it comes to lung cancer, people tell me all the time that I’m lucky. I’m lucky that my cancer was caught early, I’m lucky that I was able to have surgery, I’m lucky that I was armed with knowledge about lung cancer, I’m lucky that I had the lung cancer world...
Source: Being Cancer Network - March 28, 2011 Category: Cancer Authors: admin Tags: Guest Post * acceptance Lung Cancer Source Type: blogs

“It’s there and I’m stuck with it” – chronic knee pain after knee joint replacementEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I share an office with an Emeritus Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery.  He snorted at me one day, and showed me the stats from our national joint register database where I saw that while the main reason given for revision of a total hip joint was dislocation, and pain was the sixth most common reason given; in the case of revision of knee joint replacements, persistent pain was the most common reason given. Some studies have shown between 6 – 30% of people receiving total knee joint replacements have ongoing pain months after their immediate post-surgical recovery.  With knee joint replacement such a common surgery f...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - March 22, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain Coping Skills Coping strategies Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Professional topics Resilience Resilience/Health acceptance biopsychosocial healthcare pain management rehabilitation Research se Source Type: blogs

Countdown – guest postEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I first planned to republish this selection last spring.  I saved it as a draft and somehow it got lost.  Kate was writing at Strong. Fighting. Surviving. When I rediscovered the post a few days ago, I went to her blogsite to notify her of my plans.  It was then that I discovered she had passed away last June.  Pancreatic cancer is a bitter aggressive disease.  Our blog list contains just eight blogs by  pancreatic survivors. Below the original selection I decided to republish both Kate’s last post, named with brace irony “Mundane”, as well as the announcement of her death with brings an end to a bl...
Source: Being Cancer Network - March 18, 2011 Category: Cancer Authors: admin Tags: Death Guest Post * Living with Cancer Uncategorized acceptance Pancreatic cancer Source Type: blogs

The Dark Side of Goal-SettingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
.It’s worth bearing in mind the dark side of goal-setting so that you don’t stray from your overall aims. Goals can be useful, but they shouldn’t be too inflexible.Too specific: It’s easy to get stuck on a goal that’s too specific and lose sight of the overall aim. Goals should be in the service of our overall aims, they shouldn’t be our masters.Too many: when people have too many goals they tend to concentrate on the easy ones. If the difficult ones are more important, once again the overall aim can suffer.Too soon: short-term goals encourage short-term thinking. Do you want your busine...
Source: Recovery Is Sexy.com - March 8, 2011 Category: Addiction Authors: Sparrow Tags: Faith Healthy Meditation Recovery Spirituality Wisdom acceptance anxiety stress Source Type: blogs

An ‘occupational’ view of the Christchurch earthquakeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The picture – what greeted us as we walked through the front door – and that sparkly stuff on the ground? It’s all my crystal in tiny sharp shards…The wooden thing you can see is the bottom of our sideboard, and to the far right, the doorway. It’s not often I post with a specific focus on ‘occupation’ as the occupational therapy profession defines it.  This is not, I hasten to add, because I don’t think it’s important, it’s more a case of my posts being about the processes that underlie effective engagement in ‘occupation’ for people with chronic pain...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - February 28, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Coping strategies Health Occupational therapy Pain Pain conditions Professional topics Resilience Resilience/Health acceptance function pain management self management Source Type: blogs

Earthquake aftermathEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Dear Readers I have had many, many expressions of concern since the earthquake struck Christchurch again on Tuesday 22 February 2011.  I’m glad to say that me and my family have escaped relatively unscathed from this traumatic event – I can’t say how badly hit my home city has been though.  While the earthquake on 4 September last year was certainly awful, this one has been so much more devastating in terms of the physical damage, not to mention the human cost in loss of life and both physical and emotional damage.  The infrastructure in Christchurch is incredibly damaged – I live in New Brighton...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - February 25, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Coping Skills Coping strategies News Pain conditions Resilience Resilience/Health acceptance biopsychosocial change mindfulness pain management values Source Type: blogs

Bread and beautyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
“If, of thy mortal goods, thou art bereft, And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left, Sell one & from the dole, Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul” - Muslihuddin Sadi, 13th Century Persian Poet
Source: Andrea's Buzzing About: - February 15, 2011 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: andrea Tags: Gardening Love & acceptance Source Type: blogs

Friday MeditationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As you know, Friday is about getting ready for the weekend.  Today I decided not to pass on some of the horrendous puns shared with me by one of my esteemed colleagues (although I may drop just one in because I can!).  Instead I thought this poem is a chance to consider being ‘in the now’, something clinicians working in pain management really need. Salutation To The Dawn Look to this day! For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course Lie all the verities and realities of your existence: The bliss of growth, The glory of action, The splendor of achievement, For yesterday is but a dream And to...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - February 10, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Coping strategies Motivation Relaxation Resilience/Health Wellness acceptance mindfulness Pain pain management Source Type: blogs

More on choosing chronic pain questionnairesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Mood and anxiety - depression, anxiety and pain-specific anxiety were chosen because of their importance to outcomes, and the need to treat psychopathology Catastrophising – because this is thought to be one of the most important aspects of cognition that needs to be addressed Pain-related anxiety and avoidance – because this appears to be one of the strongest predictors of ongoing disability Acceptance – this domain has been emerging as an increasingly important treatment process variable, and may be a target for intervention Pain location and intensity - yes, we do ask, just in case you wondered! Pain self efficacy...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - February 9, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Assessment Interdisciplinary teams Occupational therapy Pain Pain conditions Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology Research acceptance biopsychosocial Chronic pain Clinical reasoning disability healthcare pain manageme Source Type: blogs

Choosing chronic pain questionnairesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Choosing a set of questionnaires for an assessment battery can be a task fraught with all kinds of traps, because if there is one thing bound to get clinical tongues flapping, it’s the idea that their favourite questionnaire will be left out of the mix! And to complicate matters for us Southern Hemispherians, most of the research into normative data for questionnaires is North American, so it can be a long, quite tedious and epic job to arrive at a set that covers all the basic domains, doesn’t give the client questionnaire-fatigue, and uses psychometrically-sound  instruments. At the Centre where I work, the ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - February 7, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Assessment Interdisciplinary teams Pain Professional topics Research acceptance biopsychosocial Chronic pain Clinical reasoning disability Health healthcare pain management rehabilitation treatment Source Type: blogs

Negatively Oriented Therapy Takes Its PlaceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
“Misery loves company and our company loves misery.” – I.M. Kidding, NOT founder “Hatred cannot coexist with loving-kindness, and dissipates if supplanted with thoughts based on loving-kindness.” – The Dhammapada In a recent issue of the Journal of Positive Psychology researchers Michael Cohn and Barbara Fredrickson were able to demonstrate the sustainability of positive experiences with subjects who had engaged in loving kindness meditation (LKM). This is the first time researchers from the field of positive psychology have demonstrated that an intervention designed to enhance subjects’ well...
Source: World of Psychology - February 3, 2011 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Daniel Tomasulo, Ph.D. Tags: General Happiness Proof Positive Psychology Research Bad News Barbara Fredrickson Brood Dhammapada Equanimity Friendliness Grudge Hatred Loving acceptance Loving Kindness Meditation Meditations Michael Cohn Misery Loves C Source Type: blogs

CBT approach in the real worldEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
While there are many papers published about the outcomes from using a cognitive behavioural approach, there are very few describing the process ‘in the real world’. This leaves a gap for many clinicians who may read about it, maybe have training in delivering this type of intervention, or work in a team where it’s an integral part of practice – but who may not know how it ‘works’ except as it’s delivered in a pen-and-paper, sitting-in-a-clinic-room kind of way. Today I’m describing one way I go about integrating a CBT approach into my work.    This case study is a compilati...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - February 2, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Motivation Clinical reasoning Psychology Cognitive skills Therapeutic approaches Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Pain Occupational therapy ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Pain conditions Coping strategies Professional topics Ph Source Type: blogs

Disability Vanishes OvernightEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Earlier in the week I was buying gas at the supermarket filling station in the middle of a large parking lot.  As I climbed back in my truck, I noticed a middle-aged man walking across the lot.  Actually “hobbling” would better describe his gait.  While his left foot seemed to proceed normally, he  “dragged” his right foot at right-angles behind him.  He wore a stylish light winter jacket, slanted woolen cap, striped scarf and glasses. For some reason I imagined that he was gainfully employed but possessed of some physical handicap, perhaps a cerebral palsy-type disorder.  Yet he seemed to be ...
Source: Being Cancer Network - January 29, 2011 Category: Cancer Authors: admin Tags: Living with Cancer Nursing acceptance Confidence Source Type: blogs

Occupational therapy & the cognitive behavioural approach for pain managementEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I have always resisted being labelled. I am much more than my gender, my marital status, my diagnosis, my professional background.  I also feel quite uncomfortable about being told what I may or may not do (maybe that’s where my kids get it from?!). I don’t like being told what is and isn’t ‘my role’ or someone else’s role.  I’m interested in what works and doing it well and at the right time for the right reason.  Today’s post is the first of a two-part commentary on a paper by Robinson, Kennedy and Harmon published in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy this mon...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - January 29, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Clinical reasoning Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Interdisciplinary teams Occupational therapy Pain Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology Therapeutic approaches biopsychosocial CBT Chroni Source Type: blogs

Pulling it all together – biopsychosocial assessmentEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Over the past little while I’ve been writing about how a comprehensive pain assessment can be carried out.  Today it’s time to pull that information together to develop a formulation, or set of possible explanations for why this person presents in this way at this time – at least for one or two aspects of his presentation. For example, if the person’s pain is low back pain, where surgery has failed to improve the person’s pain, but he has maintained working in a teaching job where physical demands are reasonably light, but is having trouble with sleep, feels irritable, can’t manage thin...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - January 25, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Assessment Clinical reasoning Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Pain Pain conditions Professional topics Chronic pain coping strategies disability goal-setting Health healthcare Low back pain m Source Type: blogs

Unfinished made perfectEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Her very first journal entry ever read sad.It's fall 2010 and it's hard for me. My mother has cancer and my sister Amy has epilepsy. My brother Caleb is hard to take care of and Rosy is hard to please. September 28, 2010 I talked to her about finding the silver lining. About thankfulness as a choice. Encouraged her to add a few lines. In red, below the black pencil of pain, another sentence is added. The sentence that really breaks my heart.I'm thankful that my mother and Amy are still here. I have this idea in my head of who they are, these four children. I know this: they bear the image of God, they are full of...
Source: Turquoise Gates - January 12, 2011 Category: Cancer Tags: childhood homeschool finding your place appearances treasured Gospel acceptance ashes God's grace Source Type: blogs

Brain training – it happens all the timeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
At the risk of seeming untrendy, the trend to rave on about neuroplasticity can be a bit overdone.  Not, I add quickly, because it doesn’t happen, or it’s not important – in fact, quite the opposite – but because it happens all the time.  And at the back of our minds, I think we’ve known this for quite a while.  How else do you think we manage to learn new things even in our elder years? The reason I’m raising this today is, after yesterday’s post on phantom limb pain and the parts of the brain that are active when we have pain and when hypnosis is used for pain relief, I starte...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - January 10, 2011 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Coping strategies Pain Research Therapeutic approaches acceptance biopsychosocial CBT Chronic pain Health mindfulness neuromatrix pain management phantom limb pain self management treatment Source Type: blogs

Your Guest Speaker Has Arrived!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
photo credit-SeaDaveCreative Commons licenseLiz related that these were the words that Buddy Boy said when he entered the meeting at the school this afternoon. Was this a disciplinary meeting, an IEP meeting, something worse? No. Buddy Boy's principal (who has a special education background) asked Buddy Boy if he would mind talking to a group of teachers and staff about autism. Dr. D. is a fair person who has high expectations from all of her students, and has also gone out of her way to give Buddy Boy the benefit of the doubt in multiple instances when he has gotten into "situations" at school. We will miss her next year ...
Source: Club 166 - January 5, 2011 Category: Autism Tags: academics school acceptance advocacy Source Type: blogs

Topic IndexEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
After writing for three years, and starting with very limited knowledge of how things like categories and tags worked, there are a lot of posts hidden in my backfiles that might be just what you’re looking for.  So my project is to organise my posts into a topic index!  Here are the first two. ACT – posts about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and mindfulness, acceptance and committed action This section is about aspects of acceptance, mindfulness, values, committed action, and ACT, the therapy.  I am no expert in ACT, although I am slowly learning more about the approach.  Several aspects of this therapy...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - December 26, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain research therapy healthcare Resilience biopsychosocial pain management Clinical reasoning acceptance Source Type: blogs

Self-Improvement vs Self-Acceptance: Which is Right?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I read a lot of personal development material, online and offline – and there are two clear competing trends. One school of thought says keep striving for improvement. Keep doing more. Lose weight. Get fit. Make more money. The other says accept yourself just as you are. Love your body. Exercise if you like. Don’t look to money for happiness. Who’s right? Well, both approaches have advantages – and disadvantages: The Self-Improvement Junkies At its extreme, the self-improvement movement preaches the importance of constantly getting better. That has some obvious advantages: You’ll improve your weakne...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - December 15, 2010 Category: Life Coaches Authors: Ali Luke Tags: self improvement how to be happy pickthebrain relationships self acceptance Source Type: blogs

Sunday Monday News Round-Up – Way Overdue EditionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Some items that have caught my interest recently – I haven’t done one of these in a long time because of work and life and other ponderings about the best current use of the blog, but here are some news items, issues, and commentary of potential interest to readers, on women’s health, feminism, and miscellaneous topics: The CDC provides Consider Cholera: Information for U.S. Healthcare Professionals for clinicians who are asked to be on the lookout for U.S. cases, with info on diagnosis, treatment, and reporting. Aunt B has an excellent commentary in Self-Avowed Feminist, Gail Kerr, Has some Opinions abou...
Source: Women's Health News - December 13, 2010 Category: Medical Librarians Authors: Rachel Tags: Abortion Access, Rights, & Choice Birth Global Issues Government Infectious Diseases Miscellaneous News Round-Ups Pregnancy autism cholera fat acceptance feminism kegels law lead MRI sexism sexuality STIs woc Source Type: blogs

Lying in Limbo, sort ofEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
waiting... There are a number of limbos that we cancer survivors endure – waiting for test results especially biopsy results, wondering when remission will end, worrying if the treatment will take hold.  By that measure the limbo I currently find myself in is not so much a big deal.  You can always count on cancer to put things into perspective. Where I am is waiting for Unum, my disability insurance company, to decide on extending or terminating my claim.  They have heard from all the doctors, six in number.  But how the dermatologist or otolaryngologist or urologist can shed light on the state of my disability,...
Source: Being Cancer Network - November 30, 2010 Category: Cancer Authors: admin Tags: Living with Cancer Nursing acceptance Anxiety Biopsy Bone marrow transplant Confidence Future Source Type: blogs

I don’t know: three words we might not be saying enoughEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
New Zealanders are reeling today after the deaths of 29 miners trapped in a coal mine on the rugged West Coast of New Zealand.  We have watched this drama unfold over the past five days.  We have seen media conferences and we have watched TV footage.  And one of the more frustrating aspects for families has been the refrain “It’s too dangerous to enter the mine.”  The key player in the public face of this disaster has been Peter Whittall, CEO of Pike River Coal Mine.  His ability to answer questions honestly, calmly and with dignity has been a constant source of wonder.  What he must be feeling now ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - November 24, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: pain Uncategorized acceptance Chronic pain coping health healthcare pain management research therapy Source Type: blogs

Cancer Lunches – guest authorEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Cancer Essays by Dorothy Sauber is an interesting website I discovered two nights ago.  The header of the site describes her as a “writer – artist – teacher – mother – citizen”.  Her bio explains that  “She was a voracious reader and disciplined writer. When diagnosed with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer, Dorothy responded by creating a series of 16 essays that explored the many facets of living with a terminal disease. Within these writings one can find the essence of Dorothy’s rich life including her humor, family, philosophy, friends, and her endless generosity. After h...
Source: Being Cancer Network - November 19, 2010 Category: Cancer Authors: admin Tags: Guest Post * Review acceptance Lung Cancer Source Type: blogs

Medication and Self Managing Chronic Pain (ii)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
If medication is to be part of a toolkit for self managing chronic pain, then it seems to me that it’s important to know as much about the medication and how it should be used as possible.  Once again, today I’m not directly referring to the literature because I haven’t found an awful lot discussing this integration approach, so please bear this in mind when you read what I’ve written.  I’m also not a medical doctor, I don’t prescribe, I don’t want to have prescribing rights, and I must advise any reader NOT to change, reduce or increase medications without having a good discussion with you...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - November 16, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain Coping Skills therapy health healthcare biopsychosocial pain management Clinical reasoning treatment acceptance function coping strategies self management medication Source Type: blogs

Chronic pain in the interwebEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It’s not very often that I’m moved to respond to other blogposts about chronic pain.  When I go onto Google and search for chronic pain SO many awful, quacky, misleading sites come up, promising this and that with so little evidence to support their claims, I’ve tended to avoid looking.  Today, however, thanks to the Neuroscience and Pain Science for Manual Physical Therapists group on Facebook (go Diane!) I was lead to the ever-challenging Science-Based Medicine blog in which a review of the book The Pain Chronicles by Melanie Thernstrom is posted. Now I have not read The Pain Chronicles (by all accoun...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - November 10, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain News acceptance biopsychosocial function health pain management research science Source Type: blogs

Why bother with happiness? Broaden and build theory & Chronic painEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Readers may be wondering why I’ve come over all happy clappy and jolly joy germ – well, I realised I’d been writing a lot about experimental and theoretical factors found to influence vulnerability to chronic pain, but I had been writing less about ways to help people cope more effectively with chronic pain. I do have a soft spot for positive psychology because, as we can see in most of the major journals, psychological studies have primarily been interested in what goes wrong, why people may struggle to cope with their pain, and other aspects of vulnerability. Yet more people than not live well with thei...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - November 8, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Biofeedback Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills Motivation Resilience health occupational therapy psychology wellness values healthcare research relaxation biopsychosocial pai Source Type: blogs

"If That"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Good News! Buddy Boy has decided that he likes the clarinet, and wants to play in the school band. For 5th grade music, students have a choice of either taking a "normal" music class, or participating in the band. Buddy Boy chose the band. He wanted to do this when school started, and he wants to do this now.Bad News! We came home to find this letter:"Buddy Boy" is not finding much success in band. He is able to play alone when we do solos, but when the whole group plays, he is not able to focus on what we are doing and participate. He is often taking apart and putting together his clarinet. When he does play with the grou...
Source: Club 166 - October 31, 2010 Category: Autism Tags: accommodation music acceptance Source Type: blogs

Hearing the wild heartbeat in the stormEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I didn't have enough handsto hold the pieces of my brokennessDidn't have enough tearsto dry out my heartBut on the other side of the stormwhere the sunshine is wonderful warmthI've much to liveand more to giveand laughter comes so easy~Other Side of the Cloud, Sarabeth Geoghegan~A half hour east of Chicago, my eyes were a sand-filled abyss of fatigue and my knuckles ached from clutching the steering wheel, as if I could haul myself out of the drag of slumber if only I pulled hard enough on the faux leather grain of the wheel.The clouds stacked up for miles, tens of thousands of feet of mist piled in mounding thunderheads a...
Source: Turquoise Gates - October 26, 2010 Category: Cancer Tags: depression struggling suffering humility seasons God's greatness fear acceptance comfort storm Source Type: blogs

Flexibility – of the psychological kindEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
More holiday reading to ponder… One of the fascinating developments in psychology over the past 50 years is the ongoing study into what constitutes psychological health. It’s been known by many names – ego-resilience, executive control and self-regulation – but the work on these areas hasn’t been pulled together into a coherent whole until recently. The authors of this paper suggest that this is partly because of the nature of defining this particular beast – what is health after all? Their argument, and one that I find rather appealing, is that a main feature of health is to be able to ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - October 12, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Motivation Resilience cognitive behavioural therapy health occupational therapy psychology research wellness coping biopsychosocial CBT pain management fun Source Type: blogs

Counting your blessings? or looking on the bright side of life [whistles]Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
My family were big on the Andrews Sisters. One of my strong memories as a child is listening to the song ‘count your blessings, name them one by one…’ [no, I will not sing it ok?!]. And I remember the book Pollyanna (you can read it for free here!) and the ‘Glad game’ where she looked for the positive in her rather dire situation when she went to live with her strict Aunt Polly. And guess what?  There is something in this approach to coping that makes a difference! While on holiday, sad person that I am, I did spend one or two days reading journal articles.  Several of them were related to t...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - October 11, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills Motivation Resilience cognitive behavioural therapy health occupational therapy psychology research wellness healthcare biopsychosocial pain ma Source Type: blogs

Best of Our Blogs: October 5, 2010Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It’s October and Mental Health Awareness Week! How are you celebrating? Yep, there’s no denying it’s fall. I went to the park this weekend and the crispy air and falling leaves were signs that this is indeed the end of the ease of summer and the beginning of a new season. Every ending has a new beginning and like New Year’s it is another opportunity for self-growth and change. It beckons us to ask the question, “Will I embrace the coming season or mourn the lost of the one before?” If you are courageous, brave and on a mission for change, then you’ll be tickled with this week’...
Source: World of Psychology - October 5, 2010 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Brandi-Ann Uyemura Tags: Best of Our Blogs acceptance And Change Amp blogger Body Image Bridget Jones Confucius Diary Falling Leaves Good Friend Good Question Good Stuff Lost Love Life Mark Darcy Mental Health Awareness Mental Health Awareness Week Source Type: blogs

Clinicians and graded exposureEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Some people do, and some people don’t, some of us will, and some of us won’t! Graded exposure can be an uncomfortable experience for both the person who is learning to approach activities that don’t feel very good – and for the clinician! It goes against the grain for some of us to elicit anxiety and see distress as we work with people, after all, our job is to help people feel better isn’t it? There are some consistent findings about clinician anxiety vs patient anxiety when it comes to pain. It seems that clinicians can often be more conservative with regard to what is OK for a person to do ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 29, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Cognitive behavioral therapy occupational therapy psychology acceptance biopsychosocial coping strategies health healthcare mindfulness pain management physiotherapy self management Source Type: blogs

Fear/Anxiety/Avoidance – treatments review!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
For years, clinicians working in pain management have mixed together a rich assortment of strategies to help people function better.  But to identify the ‘active ingredients’ of multidisciplinary pain management using a cognitive behavioural approach, it’s been important to tease each element apart.  One size does not fit all – and just as a physician chooses the most effective medication for a disorder, in time I hope we will be able to choose the most effective strategy for the problems each individual experiences rather than applying our current ‘scatter-gun’ approach. Yesterday I g...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 27, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills cognitive behavioural therapy healthcare disability pain management assessment treatment mindfulness coping strategies self management Source Type: blogs

Fear/Anxiety/Avoidance – and some treatments!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I’ve been pondering the post by Neil O’Connell on Body in Mind in which he comments on a paper by Foster, Thomas, Bishop, Dunne and Main (2010) in which he makes the point that “There is a huge emphasis on psychological variables in research and current care for low back pain. My experience (the usual biased, unreliable, non-replicable shambles) tells me that this is justifiably so. But in this rigorous study the four psychological variables found to have a unique influence individually explained just 2.5% of the variance or less. The big players were the level of disability when the patient arrived at th...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 27, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: ACT - acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills cognitive behavioural therapy research health biopsychosocial CBT rehabilitation pain management treatment occupational therapy physiotherapy p Source Type: blogs

The ‘Tigger’ effect – resilience & emotion-regulationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Tigger. That orange-furred, black-striped, tiger character originally introduced in A. A. Milne’s book The House at Pooh Corner. Tigger is a very bouncy fella. Tigger is amongst the most exuberant creatures in the 100 Acre Wood, and his most stand out and well-known feature is his very springy tail. Tigger has resilience. The wonderful thing about Tiggers…..Is Tiggers are wonderful things…..Their tops are made out of rubber…..The bottoms are made out of springs…..They’re bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy…..Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun…..But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 15, 2010 Category: Occupational Therapists Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills Resilience wellness acceptance cognitive behavioural therapy coping strategies function health occupational therapy pain management physiotherapy psychology self management Source Type: blogs

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