A Therapist’s Guide to
Understanding Chronic Pain

Sunday, April 11, 2021
1:00pm – 4:00pm, EST

Historically, health care practitioners have treated pain as a sensory experience occurring in the body.  Fortunately, over time, a more comprehensive vision of pain has emerged centering the pain in the brain, as a mind-body phenomenon.  This workshop will provide an understanding of how intricately pain is linked to the psyche. Dr. Robin Cohen, PhD, PsyD,  will demonstrate ways of evaluating and treating pain using our knowledge of psychology, psychotherapy and neuroscience.

(Trainer Robin S. Cohen, PhD, PsyD received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UCLA. Dr. Cohen completed an internship at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, specializing in Medical Psychology and trained in Hypnosis. In 1998, she received a Psy.D. from the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (ICP). Dr. Cohen is currently a Training and Supervising Analyst at ICP, as well as past President of the ICP Board of Directors.  Additionally she is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of UCLA, involved in clinical training.  Dr. Cohen’s focus is contemporary relational psychoanalytic approaches, object-relations, trauma focused psychotherapy, the relationship between the mind, the body and the brain, and mindfulness approaches.)

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to understand the important link between chronic pain and emotional factors.
• Participants will be able to understand various ways to assess a pain patient in order to develop a treatment plan
• Participants will learn about the primary effective treatment strategies for chronic pain.

Program Agenda

• What is chronic pain? (20 minutes)
  1. Historical concepts of pain.
  2. Current definition of chronic pain.
  3. Why it is important for you to understand pain.
• Mind-body dynamics in chronic pain conditions. (30 minutes)
  1. The interplay of emotions and pain.
  2. Psychological factors affecting pain experience.
  3. Psychological sequalae of chronic pain.
  4. Trauma and Pain
• Evaluating a referral: Is this someone who I should and can treat? (20 minutes)
• Treatment modalities. (60 minutes)
  1. Multidisciplinary treatment
  2. Cognitive Therapies
  3. Psychoanalytic Approaches
  4. EMDR and Trauma Focused treatments
  5. Mindfulness approaches
• Case discussion (disguised case) (30 minutes).
• Questions (20 minutes)