Pain Science Education

In this episode, we're exploring the concept of interoception, and how it impacts both physical and mental well-being. Interoception can be defined as one sense of their internal state of the body. This is a full-body sensory experience that has both a conscious as well as a subconscious or semi-conscious layer to it. As practitioners, we're able to train the sense just as we would train balance or proprioception. Interoception includes the brain's processing of signals relayed up from the body into specific sub-regions of the brain, such as the brainstem, the insula and the somatosensory cortex. This felt a sense of our body, its organs, and all of our physiologic processes allow for specific, as well as subtle or nuanced representation of our emotional and physical state.

Interoception is important for maintaining homeostasis in the body. It improves one’s self-awareness or body awareness. It's a critical component of mindfulness training, especially when you're working with body-based conditions, such as reversing chronic pain or releasing trauma. Both have important ties to interoceptive processing. Training interoception, which we can also term as this eighth sense, is often left out of both physical and mental health treatment for chronic pain.

Joining us to speak about interoception is Occupational Therapist Kelly Mahler. She an Occupational Therapist, serving school-aged children and adults and is a winner of multiple awards, including the 2020 American Occupational Therapy Association Emerging & Innovative Practice Award. Kelly is a principal investigator in several research projects pertaining to interoception, self-regulation, trauma, and autism. In this episode, we'll further define interoception, how it can be used in clinical practice and how interoception has an influence on chronic pain and other chronic disease conditions. Without further ado, let's learn about this eighth sense of interception and let's meet Dr. Kelly Mahler.

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Episode 253 | Strategies For Self-Care & Resilience With Natalie Dattilo, PhD 0

Nov 10, 2021

I had the opportunity to speak on a panel for the development of a new chronic pain app. There were three of us that were practitioners on that panel. It was myself, a social psychologist and our guest, Dr.Natalie Dattilo. We were fielding questions both from people living with pain as well as practitioners. I had the opportunity to get to know Natalie and I wanted to share her with you and introduce you to her because I found her approach to be very refreshing. For me, it was refreshing even though we know that mental health is finally getting the attention it deserves both in pain care and other aspects of illness.

What I like about her approach is that she focuses on well-being and resilience. Instead of focusing on what's wrong, she's focusing on what can we improve and how can we improve someone's resiliency so that they can cope and overcome whatever physical or mental health challenge that they're facing.

She is a licensed Clinical and Health Psychologist who specializes in the treatment of depression, anxiety, stress as well as insomnia. She provides psychological evaluation and treatment at Brigham Women's Hospital and is an Instructor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In this episode, we discuss the intersection between self-care and resiliency, when it comes to living with chronic pain or another challenging health condition.

We discuss why self-care is important and how self-care is related to resiliency, how to build resiliency, as well as the barriers that might show up as you start to engage in a self-care routine. The rates of depression, anxiety as well as chronic pain skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an important episode to share with your friends, family as well as the patients that you treat. There's no time like a depressant to take stock of how you're doing mentally, physically as well as emotionally and to develop a self-care routine that will contribute to resiliency. Without further ado, let's begin and meet Dr. Natalie Dattilo.