September 11, 2024 • 23 mins
In this episode, Dr. David Hanscom continues his discussion with Vanessa Blackstone, a therapist and Executive Director of the Pain Psychology Center. She explains Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a therapeutic modality aimed at eliminating chronic pain by rewiring neural pathways in the brain. She emphasizes that it shifts the patient’s belief about their pain and helps them rewire their brain to change their response to pain. This involves educating them about the sources of their pain, how their brains predict pain and how neuroplasticity can help them heal. They learn how to become more aware of their pain and create detailed descriptions of it, including its evolution and intensity. Through questions, she helps her patients better understand and track their pain. In the process, they learn to change their compulsive thoughts and begin the healing journey. Vanessa Blackstone, ACSW, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Nation, is the Executive Director of the Pain Psychology Center. She earned her M.S. in Social Work from the University of Southern California. After overcoming chronic pain herself, Vanessa became a therapist in 2018. She specializes in chronic pain treatment, sex therapy, substance use recovery, mindfulness-based relapse prevention, and works as an Onset Wellness Professional. Vanessa, a former foster youth, advocates for foster youth by sharing her experiences at public speaking events. She is the author of the forthcoming book, The Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook, to be released in November 2024. For more information, visit: https://painpsychologycenter.com
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Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Back in Control Radio with Doctor
David Hanscombe.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Back in
Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscombe. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
and our guest today is Venessa Blackstone, the executive director
of the Pain Psychology Center. After overcoming chronic pain herself,
she became a therapist in twenty eighteen. She specializes in
(00:36):
chronic pain treatment, sex therapy, substance use recovery, mindfulness based
relapse prevention, and works as an onset wellness professional. A
former foster youth herself, she advocates for foster youth by
sharing her experiences at public speaking events.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Welcome, Thank you, Tom. I like to reintroduce Vanessa black Stone,
who is on our podcast a week ago. And Vanessa
Blackstone is a member of the Eastern Band of the
Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. She is the executive
director of the Pain Psychology Center, which by the way,
is out to forty five therapists. We'll talk about that
in a second. She earned her master's and social work
(01:17):
from the University of Southern California, and after overcoming chronic
pain herself, she became a therapist in twenty eighteen. She
specializes in chronic pain treatment, sex therapy, substance US recovery,
my infulness space, relapsed prevention, and works as an onset
wellness professional. She's a former youth foster youth. She advocates
for foster youth by sharing her experience at public speaking events. So, Vanessa,
(01:41):
welcome back. And for those of you, I would encourage
you to listen to the third first podcast. We barely
touched on Vanessa's story, and clearly the amount of trauma
she went through is unbelievable. The mountophysical suffering and mental
suffets she went through is unbelievable. And she's great, and
this is what drives her and me and all of
(02:05):
us in this field to keep pushing forward because the
healing we see is not subtle, it's profound, and we're
excited about it. So anyway, Vanessa, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
So I just want to take off where we left off.
So Vanessa had difficult childhood. She ended up in foster
care on age fourteen or fifteen. She was an overachiever
and I was a pretty good overachiever, but I thinks
she outdid me by about double, and so she did
what a lot of professionals do, is that she basically
had a tough pass and she spent a lot of
(02:40):
time out outrunning her past. And it works to a
certain degree, but at some point you just can't keep
doing it. It's not sustainable. So what I like to
do is we discuss that in the first podcast, but
I like to jump to the current moment about pain
reprocessing therapy called PRT, and I like to pick up
Vanessa where we left off, where you become a therapist
(03:01):
in twenty eighteen. I know you're working with clients, you
realize it's some tipping point that you take care of yourself.
More so, i'd like you if you just give us
a little bit more detail what PRT is and then
how you begin to apply it yourself in your own
practice and what it looks like now as you work
through clients now, So, anyway, can you just again define
(03:24):
PRT for a little bit more detail.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Definitely, Yes. PRT is a therapeutic modality that we specialize
in here at the Pain Psychology Center, and what it
pretty much is is utilizing proven systems right of therapeutic
techniques that eliminates chronic pain at the source, so the brain,
PRT shifts patients beliefs about the causes and the threat
(03:51):
of pain, providing substantial relief.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So, what we're doing in the modality is rewiring neural
pathways to look at pain through a different lens, to
teach ourselves to respond differently in order to achieve pain
reduction and eradication.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And can explain how this is a lot different than
traditional psychology or talk therapy. Yeah, I want to make
one comment for you, ship, because I mean people are
here the term rewiring the brain to go on. Yeah, yeah, sure,
but the brain's incredibly neuroplastic, and that's the keution. We
did not know that when I was in medical school
a long time ago. But the brain changes by this second.
(04:29):
So when you talk about rewiring the brain, we really
are rewiring the brain. So you want to can you
discuss that a little bit?
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah? Absolutely. So what PRT consists of in order to
actually achieve that is we provide psycho education, teaching folks
about where pain even comes from. Because a lot of
that information is so new to us. We think that
when you break your ankle, it's your ankle that is
saying I hurt, right, But what we learn in PRT
(04:59):
is that it's that's actually your brain sending a signal
to your ankle saying this hurts, and don't further hurt
it because your brain's trying to protect you. But what
we say in our work is sometimes your brain is
like a helicopter parent. It means well, but you're just
trying to play on the playground with your friends, and
it's hovering over you, and when it thinks that you're
(05:20):
going to fall, it goes, and then that can actually
make us fall, or that can make us think that
we fallen or make us think that we're hurt, and
then it continues to have this pattern of being overprotective.
So we teach folks about the role of the brain
and pain. What we do is we build evidence that
supports the fact that someone's pain can actually be neuroplastic, right,
(05:44):
coming from learned neural pathways in the brain. And we
build evidence by going over a long kind of detailed history.
What all have you done? What all have you been told?
What all have you tried? And usually the people that
have reached out to us have tried everything. We're typically
their last ditch effort. And so what we do is
(06:06):
we gather and build evidence that supports the pain as
being neuroplastic, and then we go into the somatic work.
We go into diving into the mind's ability to look
at pain through a lens of curiosity, to slow down
with it, or like what we like to say is
work with your nervous system instead of against it. I
(06:28):
encourage my clients through our somatic practices to learn how
to loosen their grip. It's like picking up yeah, sematic
being following sensations in the body, right, not just about
the cognitive approach, but like actually following the sensation, describing
(06:50):
a sensation, following what it feels like in more detail. Right.
I like to tell my own clients it's like playing
mad libs or sensations in your body. Give me a noun,
give me a descriptive where it give me all these
things that help you describe what exactly this pain is like,
what it looks like, what color it is, if it
has a scent to it. I don't know how big
(07:12):
it is, how deep it goes, what direction the pressure
is pushing in, And that can be hard to do
on your own. And that's where we come in to
really guide someone through that process.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I'm going to make a quick comment here so I
know I'm sort of down to the medical profession today.
I'm not trying to do that, but I'm going to
keep doing it.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Is that.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Many physicians, not all of them, but myself included, is that, Okay,
we have these sensations of a headache or some chest
pain or feet tingle, or there's a skin rash, and
somehow it's imaginary. Okay, So what you're doing is the opposite. Okay,
there's sensations there, they're not imaginary. I mean, why would
(07:55):
you make this stuff up? You can't make this stuff up.
So I have these skin raph is that came and
go on my wrist, Well what is that? Okay, so
it's there, but it's not quote structural or you feel
like ice water going on the back of your legs.
So that's the thing that's interesting. What you just said
strikes me because again, in medicine, particularly surgeons, we just say, well, okay,
(08:19):
you're got to be a little crazy to have these sensations, right,
and people of course really frustrated because they get labeled
and pieces to get labeled as ma linguorous et cetera.
And your bodies chemistry is creating these physical sensations. Now
I don't like the term anymore, Well, your pain is
real because it sort of implies that maybe somebody thinks
(08:40):
it's not real. But somatic tracking does exactly the opposite
of what's traditionally thought of my medicine. Well, this must
be imaginary pain. It's exactly the opposite process. So that's
pretty interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Yeah, What I often tell clients is you're you're feeling it,
but why you're receiving the signal and why it's as
intense as it is is what we're questioning. That's what
I'm trying to look at with you. Does it need
to be that intense? One of my first clients was
diagnosed with RA. I have family members that are diagnosed
(09:13):
with RA, and so my first well, I was actually
kind of pissed when they sent me that as a
first client. So there's how am I supposed to help
this person when I'm new to this work. And then
I realized no, actually, first of all, there was some
inconsistencies in symptom presentation. There was only pain going down
the stairs and not up pain opening a siding glass
door for the dogs in the morning, not reaching above
(09:35):
the fridge to grab all the pots and pants for dinner. Interesting,
and then started going, well, let's see if it needs
to be as intense as it is during these trigger moments.
And what we discovered is it didn't need to be
there at all. Actually, there was just an association with
a diagnosis, a fear of starting Ondnesday and not being
able to handle it that continue to reinforce itself through
(09:57):
a few significant activities because this this person has a
lot on their shoulders and they have to be the
one to take care of their family. And it was
just interesting to start working that in and go, I
don't think it needs to be as intense as it is.
And now this person, years later reaches out to me
maybe once a year to complain about their spouse and
that's about it, and they're doing much better.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Right. Well, we talked about this in the first podcast,
but turns out the emotional pain, mental pain and physical
pain are the exact same thing, and often and it's
not it's the same thing. And so you have a
physical symptom in your foot, and I tell my patients, look,
just learn to read your body. So you may not
(10:42):
feel anxious or frustrated, but guess what, your foot's on fire.
It's the same thing. Your body's chemistry's on fire. Or
maybe your foot's not on fire, and you feel anxious
and frustrated, Well, that's another manifestation of the same threat physiology.
You're in fight or flight and you're stressed. So okay,
So we do smatic tracking and start to follow sensations
than what happens.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
And then this is when we start really trying to
intertwine all this information at once. One thing that I
did skip that you and I highlighted in the first
podcast was addressing ruminating thoughts the cognitive part of this
work and recognizing that when we're providing psycho education, when
we are learning to respond to sensations differently, when we
(11:25):
are trying to understand our pain through a different perspective,
it allows us to kind of reframe our really tough
thoughts that say I'm in danger and this is something
I need to fix or else. A lot of the
thoughts that we experience when it comes to pain have
to do with like compulsively ruminating about something that we
feel that we can't control and giving ourself permission by
(11:48):
relying on our psycho education, our evidence, our new practice
to lean into a sensation with a different lens and
correcting those thoughts right. And so what we do is
we can combine all of these things together and kind
of do it over and over and over and over again.
And what I have a lot of the times happen
is I'll have a client come into a session and
(12:10):
they say, yeah, but this thing popped up, this must
be different, and it's a big reminder of your brain
is just trying to get you to buy into the
narrative that it knows that you are in danger. And
even then we can still apply the same work. So
we'll have a client come in and say, well, I
tried somatic tracking or I tried this activity that you
(12:33):
gave me this week and it didn't work. What else
should I be doing? And our job as the therapist
is to go, hmm. When you ask that question, what
does it feel like in your body? Do you feel anxious?
Do you feel ansty is your stomach turning? Do you
feel angry and you're gritting your teeth? What is it?
And let's tend to that sensation. I know you want
(12:53):
me to answer your question and provide you another exercise,
but there is no other exercise. I want you to
take care of that feeling that comes up that says,
I don't know if this is going to work, and
slow down and notice it and be aware of it
and tend to it with more curiosity and compassion. So essentially,
we just practice this over and over again, but in
(13:14):
so many different kinds of ways, where the brain is
trying to trick you into thinking that this is another
issue and really kind of honing in on This all
comes from the same part of the brain. That's why
the treatment is the same. Right, And I do this
like bubble chart with my own clients. I'll do a
bubble in the middle and then branch off little pieces
(13:36):
here and there and create different worlds of different bubbles,
and I'll say, this one over here feels like it's work.
This one is your relationships, this one is your pain,
this one is your anxiety, and it feels like they're
all separate problems with different barriers and different solutions, but
they're not. It all comes back to the center. That's
why the treatment is the same, and that's our job
(13:56):
just to integrate this work in so many different ways
so that this not only helps the pain but helps
their life on a foundational level.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
And then how many sessions does a person And this
is the wrong question, I know, the wrong question. We're
going to ask it anyway. So if people ask me, well,
how long does it take to heal? And I say,
that's the wrong question. The real question is how long
does it take me to learn the skills to process
my adversity or process my pain? And so some people
(14:25):
aren't quickly, some people take long time, some people take
six or eight weeks, some people take a couple of years.
And so it's really the answers on the skill set,
not on solving the pain. So, but in general, how
many sessions do you do? You generally do your treatments in.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, So what I like to tell folks is any
modality can be helpful in about eight to ten sessions.
That's an amount of time where you can start maybe
hearing me on your own. Right, if we meet on
a weekly basis, you can start hearing the things that
I say, try to remember them on your own. Maybe
they've already worked their way in because something really landed
with you. But as you've highlighted, it depends on where
(15:04):
that person is at in their life, what their support
system is like, what work is like, if they have
the ability to practice self care on more of a
regular basis. Right, some people don't, and that's entirely more
common than we think, and so it really depends on
this person's situation in their life and what they may
need on a consistent basis. So what I ask from
(15:26):
clients in the beginning is what is it that you
want from our time together? And how do you know
when you'll be done? A lot of the answers that
I get is when I'm out of pain, or other
answers that I get is I don't really know. I
just know I need some kind of support. Well, but
then maybe our time together might look a little different
because you know that you need someone unbiased and not
(15:47):
in your home, in your life to provide you guidance.
And it might have to do with pain, but it
also might have to do with the things that really
stress you out. So eight to ten sessions just to
remember the work on your own, But the consistency and
the longevity differs in that sense.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
So let's I have done entertained sessions with you, then
I'm feeling better and by the way, if your goal
is to get rid of the pain, pain still running
the show, that's a problem. Right, That's so tricky because
the goal is to not get rid of the pain.
Because I'm going to make one observations come really clear
to me, is that people, I mean life is dealing
(16:26):
with adversity is how we stay alive, and so people
expect no adversity, no pain, mental or physical, and that
expectation actually causes a lot of havoc because life is adversity.
I mean, successfully stay in align means process in your
challenges to your existence. It could be financial relationship, whatever
it is. Those don't stop and they're never going to
(16:48):
be pleasant. But people have this need to be out
of pain permanently, and that expectation is a huge problem.
So it's more going with the flow. Okay, I'm having pain,
I'm i having adversity. Like you say, you track it,
look at it, and then you do what you do.
Then you move on. And from my perspective, the healing
comes from moving on and getting out within the getting
(17:10):
off the life that you want. That's how you create
the circuit you want because you start living the life
that you want. So my observation is to have a
good life, you have to live a good life. It
takes practice. So if your goals get rid of the pain,
that's actually the wrong goal. It goes, how can I
live with my pain better and live the life that
want to live with inevitable recurrent pain. So anyway, that
(17:36):
expectation creates a lot of frustration, which far is at
the physiology, so it's paradoxical. So it's a process of
letting go and going, Okay, I'm just going to live
my life in a way. So I know you are
writing or just getting ready to have a book published
called the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook. Yes, so what is somewhere?
(17:57):
So I've gone, I've come to you, I've done ind
ten sessions and feeling better. What's the general maintenance? I'm
assuming there's homework. Obviously you wrote a book, So what
are some of the homework type tools that we might
think about?
Speaker 4 (18:12):
So I hope my goal is for the workbook to
be used in so many different kinds of ways, whether
like you said, somebody uses it as maintenance at the
end of their time here if they want to be done,
or uses it alongside their work as they're getting started
or wants to start with the workbook on their own,
see what they think and if it makes sense for them,
(18:34):
and then at the end of the workbook, if they
still want the support, they reach out. So the workbook
in and of itself is to approach pain reprocessing therapy
through a lens that feels digestible, playful, universal for many,
open for many different kinds of experiences, and allows people
(18:57):
to make a practical application in a way that feels
like it can relate to them. One of my favorite
exercises that I have actually been doing recently with a
lot of my own clients, just to put it to test,
is an exercise that I have a co author. Her
name is Olivia, and Olivia has a beautiful way of
(19:17):
talking about this work that is so light and playful
and digestible. And she created this exercise called Spaceman somatic tracking,
and the way that she integrates it is she uses
the analogy and she even says it in the exercise.
She says, I know that it can feel a little silly,
(19:37):
but remember we're trying to let go of our usual
judgment and bias and intensity in the way in which
we usually approach our pain. And so what she does
is uses this work to explore sensations, like a spaceman
exploring a galaxy for the first time. And so what
she does is she asks listeners to put on their
(19:59):
little spaceman helmet and lock it into place. And I
know you feel like you've visited this galaxy before, from
the tip of your head to the tips of your toes,
but this, in this moment is a new horizon that
you're exploring. And all we're going to do is just
jump down onto this galaxy and hop around and gather
(20:20):
information to bring it back to home base. And all
of the sensations that you feel is all the information
that we're trying to gather. And so it's this nice, long, beautiful,
mindful exercise that incorporates imagery, It incorporates being able to
tend to your breathing, and it incorporates the curiosity that
we need to relate to our pain differently.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Great So, Vanessa, thanks to other there's much more it
can be covered. But basically pain where reprocessing therapy has
been well documented to be effective and actually helping people
alleviate their pain. And it's different than talk therapy and
it's sort of a group of therapies. There is E
A E T, which is emotional awareness. What is it again?
Speaker 4 (21:08):
That acronym always gets me emotional awareness of something therapy I.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Forget, well, I mean the main essence of all this
and this one called is TDP on abbess and so
it's all about connecting. In other words, you're connecting your
mind to your emotions, which is your physiology. And so
it's a whole different family of therapies. And Peer two
has been nicely successful. Is defined as documented and it
may or may not be the definer answer, but it's
(21:35):
certainly an important step in getting better. And so I'm
excited that you're I'm impressed you up to forty five therapists.
That's unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I don't know how I did well. Yes, we have
so many and.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I'm impressure in charge of this whole thing. So I
appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. And
so again, fatly, how do we access your services online?
Work across states and countries?
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Right, yep, yes do so. You can reach us through
our website Painpsychologycenter dot com. You can also reach me
on my therapy Instagram. It's called at that dot therapist
and I get a lot of dms from from there
too because people will reach out. And then we also
have a pain Psychology Center Instagram as well. I think
(22:21):
it's the Pain Psychology Center and people have floed in
from many different avenues. So the website is the best
way to get ahold of us often.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Okay, and then your book would be out in November
called Processing and Therapy Workbook, which actually with your experience
and background will be great. And anyway, thank you very
much for being on the show. Appreciate it, Thank you absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I'd like to thank our guest Vanessa Blackstone for being
on the show today and explaining pain reprocessing therapy and
how she incorporates it into her work with clients. I'm
your host, tom Maasters, remind leanting you to be back
next week for another episode of Back in Control Radio
with doctor David Hanscombe, and in the meantime, be sure
(23:07):
to visit the website at www dot backincontrol dot com.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
Back in Control Radium
Hello, and welcome to Back in Control Radio with Doctor
David Hanscombe.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Back in
Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscombe. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
and our guest today is Venessa Blackstone, the executive director
of the Pain Psychology Center. After overcoming chronic pain herself,
she became a therapist in twenty eighteen. She specializes in
(00:36):
chronic pain treatment, sex therapy, substance use recovery, mindfulness based
relapse prevention, and works as an onset wellness professional. A
former foster youth herself, she advocates for foster youth by
sharing her experiences at public speaking events.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Welcome, Thank you, Tom. I like to reintroduce Vanessa black Stone,
who is on our podcast a week ago. And Vanessa
Blackstone is a member of the Eastern Band of the
Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. She is the executive
director of the Pain Psychology Center, which by the way,
is out to forty five therapists. We'll talk about that
in a second. She earned her master's and social work
(01:17):
from the University of Southern California, and after overcoming chronic
pain herself, she became a therapist in twenty eighteen. She
specializes in chronic pain treatment, sex therapy, substance US recovery,
my infulness space, relapsed prevention, and works as an onset
wellness professional. She's a former youth foster youth. She advocates
for foster youth by sharing her experience at public speaking events. So, Vanessa,
(01:41):
welcome back. And for those of you, I would encourage
you to listen to the third first podcast. We barely
touched on Vanessa's story, and clearly the amount of trauma
she went through is unbelievable. The mountophysical suffering and mental
suffets she went through is unbelievable. And she's great, and
this is what drives her and me and all of
(02:05):
us in this field to keep pushing forward because the
healing we see is not subtle, it's profound, and we're
excited about it. So anyway, Vanessa, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
So I just want to take off where we left off.
So Vanessa had difficult childhood. She ended up in foster
care on age fourteen or fifteen. She was an overachiever
and I was a pretty good overachiever, but I thinks
she outdid me by about double, and so she did
what a lot of professionals do, is that she basically
had a tough pass and she spent a lot of
(02:40):
time out outrunning her past. And it works to a
certain degree, but at some point you just can't keep
doing it. It's not sustainable. So what I like to
do is we discuss that in the first podcast, but
I like to jump to the current moment about pain
reprocessing therapy called PRT, and I like to pick up
Vanessa where we left off, where you become a therapist
(03:01):
in twenty eighteen. I know you're working with clients, you
realize it's some tipping point that you take care of yourself.
More so, i'd like you if you just give us
a little bit more detail what PRT is and then
how you begin to apply it yourself in your own
practice and what it looks like now as you work
through clients now, So, anyway, can you just again define
(03:24):
PRT for a little bit more detail.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Definitely, Yes. PRT is a therapeutic modality that we specialize
in here at the Pain Psychology Center, and what it
pretty much is is utilizing proven systems right of therapeutic
techniques that eliminates chronic pain at the source, so the brain,
PRT shifts patients beliefs about the causes and the threat
(03:51):
of pain, providing substantial relief.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So, what we're doing in the modality is rewiring neural
pathways to look at pain through a different lens, to
teach ourselves to respond differently in order to achieve pain
reduction and eradication.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And can explain how this is a lot different than
traditional psychology or talk therapy. Yeah, I want to make
one comment for you, ship, because I mean people are
here the term rewiring the brain to go on. Yeah, yeah, sure,
but the brain's incredibly neuroplastic, and that's the keution. We
did not know that when I was in medical school
a long time ago. But the brain changes by this second.
(04:29):
So when you talk about rewiring the brain, we really
are rewiring the brain. So you want to can you
discuss that a little bit?
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah? Absolutely. So what PRT consists of in order to
actually achieve that is we provide psycho education, teaching folks
about where pain even comes from. Because a lot of
that information is so new to us. We think that
when you break your ankle, it's your ankle that is
saying I hurt, right, But what we learn in PRT
(04:59):
is that it's that's actually your brain sending a signal
to your ankle saying this hurts, and don't further hurt
it because your brain's trying to protect you. But what
we say in our work is sometimes your brain is
like a helicopter parent. It means well, but you're just
trying to play on the playground with your friends, and
it's hovering over you, and when it thinks that you're
(05:20):
going to fall, it goes, and then that can actually
make us fall, or that can make us think that
we fallen or make us think that we're hurt, and
then it continues to have this pattern of being overprotective.
So we teach folks about the role of the brain
and pain. What we do is we build evidence that
supports the fact that someone's pain can actually be neuroplastic, right,
(05:44):
coming from learned neural pathways in the brain. And we
build evidence by going over a long kind of detailed history.
What all have you done? What all have you been told?
What all have you tried? And usually the people that
have reached out to us have tried everything. We're typically
their last ditch effort. And so what we do is
(06:06):
we gather and build evidence that supports the pain as
being neuroplastic, and then we go into the somatic work.
We go into diving into the mind's ability to look
at pain through a lens of curiosity, to slow down
with it, or like what we like to say is
work with your nervous system instead of against it. I
(06:28):
encourage my clients through our somatic practices to learn how
to loosen their grip. It's like picking up yeah, sematic
being following sensations in the body, right, not just about
the cognitive approach, but like actually following the sensation, describing
(06:50):
a sensation, following what it feels like in more detail. Right.
I like to tell my own clients it's like playing
mad libs or sensations in your body. Give me a noun,
give me a descriptive where it give me all these
things that help you describe what exactly this pain is like,
what it looks like, what color it is, if it
has a scent to it. I don't know how big
(07:12):
it is, how deep it goes, what direction the pressure
is pushing in, And that can be hard to do
on your own. And that's where we come in to
really guide someone through that process.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I'm going to make a quick comment here so I
know I'm sort of down to the medical profession today.
I'm not trying to do that, but I'm going to
keep doing it.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Is that.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Many physicians, not all of them, but myself included, is that, Okay,
we have these sensations of a headache or some chest
pain or feet tingle, or there's a skin rash, and
somehow it's imaginary. Okay, So what you're doing is the opposite. Okay,
there's sensations there, they're not imaginary. I mean, why would
(07:55):
you make this stuff up? You can't make this stuff up.
So I have these skin raph is that came and
go on my wrist, Well what is that? Okay, so
it's there, but it's not quote structural or you feel
like ice water going on the back of your legs.
So that's the thing that's interesting. What you just said
strikes me because again, in medicine, particularly surgeons, we just say, well, okay,
(08:19):
you're got to be a little crazy to have these sensations, right,
and people of course really frustrated because they get labeled
and pieces to get labeled as ma linguorous et cetera.
And your bodies chemistry is creating these physical sensations. Now
I don't like the term anymore, Well, your pain is
real because it sort of implies that maybe somebody thinks
(08:40):
it's not real. But somatic tracking does exactly the opposite
of what's traditionally thought of my medicine. Well, this must
be imaginary pain. It's exactly the opposite process. So that's
pretty interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Yeah, What I often tell clients is you're you're feeling it,
but why you're receiving the signal and why it's as
intense as it is is what we're questioning. That's what
I'm trying to look at with you. Does it need
to be that intense? One of my first clients was
diagnosed with RA. I have family members that are diagnosed
(09:13):
with RA, and so my first well, I was actually
kind of pissed when they sent me that as a
first client. So there's how am I supposed to help
this person when I'm new to this work. And then
I realized no, actually, first of all, there was some
inconsistencies in symptom presentation. There was only pain going down
the stairs and not up pain opening a siding glass
door for the dogs in the morning, not reaching above
(09:35):
the fridge to grab all the pots and pants for dinner. Interesting,
and then started going, well, let's see if it needs
to be as intense as it is during these trigger moments.
And what we discovered is it didn't need to be
there at all. Actually, there was just an association with
a diagnosis, a fear of starting Ondnesday and not being
able to handle it that continue to reinforce itself through
(09:57):
a few significant activities because this this person has a
lot on their shoulders and they have to be the
one to take care of their family. And it was
just interesting to start working that in and go, I
don't think it needs to be as intense as it is.
And now this person, years later reaches out to me
maybe once a year to complain about their spouse and
that's about it, and they're doing much better.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Right. Well, we talked about this in the first podcast,
but turns out the emotional pain, mental pain and physical
pain are the exact same thing, and often and it's
not it's the same thing. And so you have a
physical symptom in your foot, and I tell my patients, look,
just learn to read your body. So you may not
(10:42):
feel anxious or frustrated, but guess what, your foot's on fire.
It's the same thing. Your body's chemistry's on fire. Or
maybe your foot's not on fire, and you feel anxious
and frustrated, Well, that's another manifestation of the same threat physiology.
You're in fight or flight and you're stressed. So okay,
So we do smatic tracking and start to follow sensations
than what happens.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
And then this is when we start really trying to
intertwine all this information at once. One thing that I
did skip that you and I highlighted in the first
podcast was addressing ruminating thoughts the cognitive part of this
work and recognizing that when we're providing psycho education, when
we are learning to respond to sensations differently, when we
(11:25):
are trying to understand our pain through a different perspective,
it allows us to kind of reframe our really tough
thoughts that say I'm in danger and this is something
I need to fix or else. A lot of the
thoughts that we experience when it comes to pain have
to do with like compulsively ruminating about something that we
feel that we can't control and giving ourself permission by
(11:48):
relying on our psycho education, our evidence, our new practice
to lean into a sensation with a different lens and
correcting those thoughts right. And so what we do is
we can combine all of these things together and kind
of do it over and over and over and over again.
And what I have a lot of the times happen
is I'll have a client come into a session and
(12:10):
they say, yeah, but this thing popped up, this must
be different, and it's a big reminder of your brain
is just trying to get you to buy into the
narrative that it knows that you are in danger. And
even then we can still apply the same work. So
we'll have a client come in and say, well, I
tried somatic tracking or I tried this activity that you
(12:33):
gave me this week and it didn't work. What else
should I be doing? And our job as the therapist
is to go, hmm. When you ask that question, what
does it feel like in your body? Do you feel anxious?
Do you feel ansty is your stomach turning? Do you
feel angry and you're gritting your teeth? What is it?
And let's tend to that sensation. I know you want
(12:53):
me to answer your question and provide you another exercise,
but there is no other exercise. I want you to
take care of that feeling that comes up that says,
I don't know if this is going to work, and
slow down and notice it and be aware of it
and tend to it with more curiosity and compassion. So essentially,
we just practice this over and over again, but in
(13:14):
so many different kinds of ways, where the brain is
trying to trick you into thinking that this is another
issue and really kind of honing in on This all
comes from the same part of the brain. That's why
the treatment is the same. Right, And I do this
like bubble chart with my own clients. I'll do a
bubble in the middle and then branch off little pieces
(13:36):
here and there and create different worlds of different bubbles,
and I'll say, this one over here feels like it's work.
This one is your relationships, this one is your pain,
this one is your anxiety, and it feels like they're
all separate problems with different barriers and different solutions, but
they're not. It all comes back to the center. That's
why the treatment is the same, and that's our job
(13:56):
just to integrate this work in so many different ways
so that this not only helps the pain but helps
their life on a foundational level.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
And then how many sessions does a person And this
is the wrong question, I know, the wrong question. We're
going to ask it anyway. So if people ask me, well,
how long does it take to heal? And I say,
that's the wrong question. The real question is how long
does it take me to learn the skills to process
my adversity or process my pain? And so some people
(14:25):
aren't quickly, some people take long time, some people take
six or eight weeks, some people take a couple of years.
And so it's really the answers on the skill set,
not on solving the pain. So, but in general, how
many sessions do you do? You generally do your treatments in.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, So what I like to tell folks is any
modality can be helpful in about eight to ten sessions.
That's an amount of time where you can start maybe
hearing me on your own. Right, if we meet on
a weekly basis, you can start hearing the things that
I say, try to remember them on your own. Maybe
they've already worked their way in because something really landed
with you. But as you've highlighted, it depends on where
(15:04):
that person is at in their life, what their support
system is like, what work is like, if they have
the ability to practice self care on more of a
regular basis. Right, some people don't, and that's entirely more
common than we think, and so it really depends on
this person's situation in their life and what they may
need on a consistent basis. So what I ask from
(15:26):
clients in the beginning is what is it that you
want from our time together? And how do you know
when you'll be done? A lot of the answers that
I get is when I'm out of pain, or other
answers that I get is I don't really know. I
just know I need some kind of support. Well, but
then maybe our time together might look a little different
because you know that you need someone unbiased and not
(15:47):
in your home, in your life to provide you guidance.
And it might have to do with pain, but it
also might have to do with the things that really
stress you out. So eight to ten sessions just to
remember the work on your own, But the consistency and
the longevity differs in that sense.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
So let's I have done entertained sessions with you, then
I'm feeling better and by the way, if your goal
is to get rid of the pain, pain still running
the show, that's a problem. Right, That's so tricky because
the goal is to not get rid of the pain.
Because I'm going to make one observations come really clear
to me, is that people, I mean life is dealing
(16:26):
with adversity is how we stay alive, and so people
expect no adversity, no pain, mental or physical, and that
expectation actually causes a lot of havoc because life is adversity.
I mean, successfully stay in align means process in your
challenges to your existence. It could be financial relationship, whatever
it is. Those don't stop and they're never going to
(16:48):
be pleasant. But people have this need to be out
of pain permanently, and that expectation is a huge problem.
So it's more going with the flow. Okay, I'm having pain,
I'm i having adversity. Like you say, you track it,
look at it, and then you do what you do.
Then you move on. And from my perspective, the healing
comes from moving on and getting out within the getting
(17:10):
off the life that you want. That's how you create
the circuit you want because you start living the life
that you want. So my observation is to have a
good life, you have to live a good life. It
takes practice. So if your goals get rid of the pain,
that's actually the wrong goal. It goes, how can I
live with my pain better and live the life that
want to live with inevitable recurrent pain. So anyway, that
(17:36):
expectation creates a lot of frustration, which far is at
the physiology, so it's paradoxical. So it's a process of
letting go and going, Okay, I'm just going to live
my life in a way. So I know you are
writing or just getting ready to have a book published
called the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook. Yes, so what is somewhere?
(17:57):
So I've gone, I've come to you, I've done ind
ten sessions and feeling better. What's the general maintenance? I'm
assuming there's homework. Obviously you wrote a book, So what
are some of the homework type tools that we might
think about?
Speaker 4 (18:12):
So I hope my goal is for the workbook to
be used in so many different kinds of ways, whether
like you said, somebody uses it as maintenance at the
end of their time here if they want to be done,
or uses it alongside their work as they're getting started
or wants to start with the workbook on their own,
see what they think and if it makes sense for them,
(18:34):
and then at the end of the workbook, if they
still want the support, they reach out. So the workbook
in and of itself is to approach pain reprocessing therapy
through a lens that feels digestible, playful, universal for many,
open for many different kinds of experiences, and allows people
(18:57):
to make a practical application in a way that feels
like it can relate to them. One of my favorite
exercises that I have actually been doing recently with a
lot of my own clients, just to put it to test,
is an exercise that I have a co author. Her
name is Olivia, and Olivia has a beautiful way of
(19:17):
talking about this work that is so light and playful
and digestible. And she created this exercise called Spaceman somatic tracking,
and the way that she integrates it is she uses
the analogy and she even says it in the exercise.
She says, I know that it can feel a little silly,
(19:37):
but remember we're trying to let go of our usual
judgment and bias and intensity in the way in which
we usually approach our pain. And so what she does
is uses this work to explore sensations, like a spaceman
exploring a galaxy for the first time. And so what
she does is she asks listeners to put on their
(19:59):
little spaceman helmet and lock it into place. And I
know you feel like you've visited this galaxy before, from
the tip of your head to the tips of your toes,
but this, in this moment is a new horizon that
you're exploring. And all we're going to do is just
jump down onto this galaxy and hop around and gather
(20:20):
information to bring it back to home base. And all
of the sensations that you feel is all the information
that we're trying to gather. And so it's this nice, long, beautiful,
mindful exercise that incorporates imagery, It incorporates being able to
tend to your breathing, and it incorporates the curiosity that
we need to relate to our pain differently.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Great So, Vanessa, thanks to other there's much more it
can be covered. But basically pain where reprocessing therapy has
been well documented to be effective and actually helping people
alleviate their pain. And it's different than talk therapy and
it's sort of a group of therapies. There is E
A E T, which is emotional awareness. What is it again?
Speaker 4 (21:08):
That acronym always gets me emotional awareness of something therapy I.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Forget, well, I mean the main essence of all this
and this one called is TDP on abbess and so
it's all about connecting. In other words, you're connecting your
mind to your emotions, which is your physiology. And so
it's a whole different family of therapies. And Peer two
has been nicely successful. Is defined as documented and it
may or may not be the definer answer, but it's
(21:35):
certainly an important step in getting better. And so I'm
excited that you're I'm impressed you up to forty five therapists.
That's unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I don't know how I did well. Yes, we have
so many and.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I'm impressure in charge of this whole thing. So I
appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. And
so again, fatly, how do we access your services online?
Work across states and countries?
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Right, yep, yes do so. You can reach us through
our website Painpsychologycenter dot com. You can also reach me
on my therapy Instagram. It's called at that dot therapist
and I get a lot of dms from from there
too because people will reach out. And then we also
have a pain Psychology Center Instagram as well. I think
(22:21):
it's the Pain Psychology Center and people have floed in
from many different avenues. So the website is the best
way to get ahold of us often.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Okay, and then your book would be out in November
called Processing and Therapy Workbook, which actually with your experience
and background will be great. And anyway, thank you very
much for being on the show. Appreciate it, Thank you absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I'd like to thank our guest Vanessa Blackstone for being
on the show today and explaining pain reprocessing therapy and
how she incorporates it into her work with clients. I'm
your host, tom Maasters, remind leanting you to be back
next week for another episode of Back in Control Radio
with doctor David Hanscombe, and in the meantime, be sure
(23:07):
to visit the website at www dot backincontrol dot com.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
Back in Control Radium
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