Moving With Pain: What Principles From Somatic Practices Can Offer to People Living With Chronic Pain

Abstract

This article brings together research from the fields of chronic pain management and somatic practices to develop a novel framework of principles to support people living with persistent pain. These include movement-based approaches to awareness of the internal body (interoception), the external environment (exteroception) and movement in space (proprioception). These significantly work with the lived subjective experiences of people living with pain, to become aware of body signals and self-management of symptoms, explore fear and pleasure of movement, and understand how social environments impact on pain. This analysis has potential to create new ways of supporting, understanding and articulating pain experiences, as well as shaping the future of somatic practices for chronic pain.

Injury, illness, and emotion: A review of the motivational continuum from trauma through recovery from an ecological perspective

“…Profound neuroimmune responses to extreme trauma may protect from distress by inducing dissociation, compromising access to interoceptive sensory flow ( van der Kolk et al, 1995 ; Axmacher et al, 2010 ; Lumley et al, 2011 ; Payne et al, 2015 ) - following healing that same interoceptive flow can generate wellbeing, positively motivating adaptive recovery. Contemporary therapies for recovery from trauma including those based on mindfulness and movement emphasise interoceptive/proprioceptive awareness ( Farb et al, 2015 ; Yu and McCracken 2016 ; Lumley and Schubiner 2019 ; Meehan and Carter 2020 ; Allen et al, 2021 ).…”

Multidimensional assessment of pain in patients with breast cancer and cancers of the female and male genital organs

“…Radioterapia często powoduje popromienne uszkodzenie jelit z uczuciem parcia na stolec oraz uszkodzenie pęcherza moczowego z zaburzeniami mikcji. Powikłania leczenia również mogą przyczyniać się do zwiększonego nasilenia bólu [14,17,18,19].…”

The Association between Dysbiosis and Neurological Conditions Often Manifesting with Chronic Pain

“…Chronic pain is pain which persists longer than 3 months past the normal healing time of the tissue [ 1 ], as associated with somatic injury. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) now defines chronic pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage” [ 2 ]. While pain is associated with many chronic conditions, the most recent update of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), however, now lists chronic pain as its own health condition [ 3 ].…”

“…Additional types of chronic pain are categorised into functional somatic syndromes (FSS) where chronic pain persists in the absence of any physical or structural defect in the body or absence of a somatic condition [ 5 ]. Chronic pain is multifaceted, having a significant impact on the suffering individual socially, economically and physically, and affects approximately 20% of the global population [ 2 ]. Chronic pain is also associated with opioid addiction, mental health conditions, social isolation and reduced quality of life [ 6 ].…”