We’re talking about the important topic of compassion and pain care. Our expert guest is my friend and colleague, Shelly Prosko. Shelly is a Canadian physiotherapist, yoga therapist, author, speaker and educator. She is someone who is empowering individuals to create and sustain meaningful change in their life by teaching and advocating for the integration of yoga into modern healthcare. You may know Shelly as the pioneer of PhysioYoga, which is a unique combination of physiotherapy and yoga. Shelly guest lectures at medical colleges, teaches at yoga therapy schools, provide yoga teacher trainings, speaks internationally at yoga therapy and medical conferences, contributes to yoga academic research and offers online and offline continuing education courses for both yoga and healthcare professionals on important topic such as chronic pain, pelvic pain, compassion and professional burnout.

Shelly has recently co-authored a book called Yoga and Science in Pain Care: Treating the Person in Pain. That’s available online. We’ll also discuss that book. You’ll learn all about the different components of compassion, why compassion and pain care is important for both people overcoming pain as well as the practitioners who treat them. What are some of the reasons why we don’t always provide compassionate pain care? We’ll discuss if compassion is something that can be trained and cultivated or is it something that you’re born with? Finally, how to differentiate between compassion, empathy, and compassion fatigue. To help celebrate the launch of her new book, Shelly is providing a free chapter written about Compassion and Pain Care from her book for you. To download that free chapter on Compassion and Pain Care, all you have to do is to text the word 155download to the number 44222 or if you’re on a computer or another device, open up a new browser and type in the URL, www.IntegrativePainScienceInstitute.com/155download.

Before we begin, I wanted to share a brand-new community with you that I started. I created a free Facebook community for those who follow the Healing Pain Podcast and the Integrative Pain Science Institute. Inside this group, you can access free tips, education resources, and connect with like-minded peers and friends. Anyone can join this group, but I would especially like to meet you if you are an integrated pain practitioner. This would include a physical therapist, a physiotherapist and occupational therapist, a physician, a health coach, a psychologist, a counselor, a social worker. No matter who you are, if you are a healthcare provider, I’m looking forward to personally meeting you and hearing all about the great things that you’re doing in the world of pain care. To join this group, all you have to do is go to www.Facebook.com/groups/ipsicommunity. If you can’t remember that long URL, you can simply send me an email at Joe@IntegrativePainScienceInstitute.com. Make sure to take the time to download our free gift. Make sure to take a moment to join that Facebook group. I can’t wait to meet you there. Let’s begin and let’s meet the wonderful and fabulous, Shelly Prosko.

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We have a brand-new topic and expert guest that I'm excited to share with you. We're discussing the importance of story and narrative medicine and pain care with physiotherapist, Lissanthea Taylor. I love Lissanthea's work and skillset because she is a triple threat of a physiotherapist who is up to date on the latest pain science and online author who creates meaningful content for people with pain and someone at the forefront of implementing narrative medicine and pain care. She's also the founding editor of an online platform called PainChats.com and managed communications and media for the University of South Australia's Pain Revolution. Lissanthea puts her time between clinical work, helping people overcome pain, teaching narrative medicine to professionals, as well as creating easy to access evidence-based online resources for people in pain.

On this episode, you'll learn all about narrative medicine, why stories matter and are important in pain care, why storytelling has become such a buzzword. What practical things you can do to enhance your ability to hear stories and some of the common misconceptions about the importance of story and healthcare. If you're interested in learning more about narrative medicine, you can visit Lissanthea's website which is called NarrativeRx.com. Finally, to support your learning about today's fresh and new topic, Lissanthea has created a free white paper called Narrative Medicine in Pain Care that you can download. Containing this free white paper is some beginner training about narrative medicine, references to books and other resources about narrative medicine as well as information about Lissanthea's Facebook page and how you can access the Narrative Medicine in Pain Care pilot program that she's created. To download this white paper, all you have to do is text the word 154DOWNLOAD to the number 44-222. You can open up a new browser on your computer and type in www.IntegrativePainScienceInstitute.com/154download. Let’s learn all about narrative medicine and pain care with Lissanthea Taylor.

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In this episode, we are discussing how to move effective pain education forward in developing countries. Our expert guest this week is Professor Felipe Reis. He is a Brazilian physiotherapist and professor of physical therapy at the Federal Institute of Rio de Janeiro. His research focuses on pain education, emotion and cognitive neuroscience. He is a visiting researcher at McGill University, an Associate Researcher with the Pain in Motion Group and Chair of the Pain, Mind and Movement Special Interest Group at the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Felipe will discuss his research and continued work in improving pain education for both adults and children in developing countries. He will compare the chronic pain epidemic in Brazil versus other countries and discuss how pain education is being rolled out in the curriculum of physical therapy schools in Brazil. How to develop pain education tools for people with chronic pain and his own unique and innovative cartoon book for children which is called A Journey to Learn About Pain.

If you are a practitioner who treats children or adolescents with pain and you’d like to use this book or perhaps you are a parent of a child with pain, you can download for free. All you have to do is text the word 153Download to the number 44222 or you can open up a new browser on your computer and you can type in the URL, www.IntegrativePainScienceInstitute.com/153Download. It’s super generous of Felipe to be providing this great resource for all of you. Let’s begin and let’s learn all about pain education in developing countries and how to create effective pain education tools for both children and adults with Professor Felipe Reis.

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We are discussing the importance of values in pain care and how values are approached through the lens of acceptance and commitment therapy. In acceptance and commitment therapy, the term values refers to activities that give your life meaning. Values can be looked upon as the people, the causes and the activities that are deeply important to you. When you connect to your values, you’re able to move your life forward in meaningful directions even in the face of very difficult and very painful experiences. This is why values are so important because in clinical trials, values are associated with lots of positive outcomes. Even if pain itself does not change, you can have less anxiety, less depression and improved physical function and enjoy a much richer, full and active life.

The best part of values is that you choose your own values. Often people can confuse a value with a goal. Values are not goals and you never accomplish a value. Instead, values act like a compass that helps you make choices and move you in the direction that you want to go. Values keep you on track with a rich, full and active life, even if you have some pain. Joining us is JoAnne Dahl. She is a Professor of Psychology at Uppsala University in Sweden and a clinical psychologist specializing in behavioral medicine. She is the co-author of the book, The Art and Science of Valuing in Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain, Living Beyond Your Pain and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Relational Frame Theory in Relationships.

We’ll discuss many types of values or what are known as value domains and acceptance and commitment therapy. Values can be a huge topic that many people spend lots and lots of years studying. Values work can be distilled or focus into ten categories. These ten value domains for you to think about are parenting, family and friends, intimate relationships, work, leisure, citizenship, personal growth, health, spirituality and community. As you participate, take a moment to notice what’s essential in your life when you hear one of these value domains mentioned. For example, we’ll discuss the domain of personal care. Personal care can also be looked upon as your personal health which is an important topic for people overcoming chronic pain.

Think about how you would like to take care of your body or how you’d like to take care of your health when it comes to exercise or diet under the ideal circumstances. See if you can connect this to a deeper health value that’s personal to you. For example, you may think, “I want to feel healthy and strong when it comes to exercise.” That’s great and it’s important but then I want you to take that one level deeper and I want you to know or I want you to ask yourself, “Why is this important? Why is it important for me to be healthy and strong?” Notice what comes up for you. You may notice, “I want to be healthy and strong so I can coach my son’s baseball games,” or “I want to be healthy and strong so I can be the PTA President at my daughter’s elementary school,” or possibly, “I want to be healthy and strong so I can be a loving and supportive daughter for my mom who is getting older and is not able to take care of herself anymore.”

There are lots of reasons why you value being healthy and strong. To accompany this episode, I’ve included the Bull’s Eye Values worksheet for you to download. The Bull’s Eye is a values clarification exercise you can use whether you are somewhat with pain or you’re a practitioner and you’re interested in implementing values work during your therapy sessions. The Bull’s Eye worksheet is a one-page handout and a useful tool that you can use in practice whether you’re a physical medicine professional or a mental health professional. To download the Bull’s Eye worksheet, all you have to do is text the word 152Download to the number 44222 or you can go to IntegrativePainScienceInstitute.com/152download. There are specific instructions on how you can use it and you’ll also learn a lot in this episode. Let’s meet JoAnne Dahl as we discuss values and pain care.

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