People who suffer from chronic pain are typically found to be more anxious and fearful of pain than those who do not. Recent evidence has shown that the fear itself serves as a mechanism through which chronic pain is maintained over time. Even once the muscle or tissue damage is healed, a fearof further pain can lead to avoidance behaviour, which over time, leads to deconditioning (e.g. decreased mobility, weight gain). This in turn leads to further pain experiences, negative expectancies, and strengthened avoidance. It is the reciprocal relationship between fear and avoidance that isthought to be responsible for maintaining pain behaviour and disability. With fear of pain known to cause significant suffering and functional disability, there is a need for a greater understanding of this condition. This is the first book to explore this topic. It starts by introducing the current theoretical positions regarding pain-related fear and anxiety alongwith relevant empirical findings. It then provides comprehensive coverage of assessment issues and treatment strategies. Finally, the book suggests further areas for investigation. Pain-related fear and anxiety are now receiving considerable attention, and efficient and effective treatments are fast becoming available. This book will help guide and extend our understanding of a condition that has been shown to be associated with substantial suffering and disability.

This book identifies fear of movement and injury as a primary issue in chronic pain management. It provides a detailed treatment manual on exposure-based techniques for the reduction of pain-related fear and disability in chronic pain.

Neuroscience of Pain, Stress, and Emotion: Psychological and Clinical Implications presents updated research on stress, pain, and emotion, all key research areas within both basic and clinical neuroscience. Improved research understanding of their interaction is ultimately necessary if clinicians and those working in the field of psychosomatic medicine are to alleviate patient suffering. This volume offers broad coverage of that interaction, with chapters written by major researchers in the field. After reviewing the neuroscience of pain and stress, the contents go on to address the interaction between stress and chronic/acute pain, the role of different emotions in pain, neurobiological mechanisms mediating these various interactions, individual differences in both stress and pain, the role of patient expectations during treatment (placebo and nocebo responses), and how those relate to stress modulation. While there are books on the market which discuss pain, stress, and emotion separately, this volume is the first to tackle their nexus, thus appealing to both researchers and clinicians. - Represents the only comprehensive reference detailing the link between pain, stress and emotion, covering the neuroscientific underpinnings, related psychological processes, and clinical implications - Compiles, in one place, research which promises to improve the methodology of clinical trials and the use of knowledge of pain-stress-emotion effects in order to reduce patients' suffering - Provides comprehensive chapters authored by global leaders in the field, the broadest, most expert coverage available

"This is a wonderfully clear, complete, detailed, and reassuring discussion of the sexual facts of life for women. It provides excellent questionnaires to help the reader identify her own unique sexual nature and needs, together with concrete procedures to solve problems and work toward a healthy and satisfying sex life." -Kathleen Logan Prince, M.S.W., Certified Sex Therapist Sex is essentially a simple biological function, as natural to our bodies as eating or sleeping. When things go wrong, some kind of fear or physical discomfort is often at the root of the problem. This workbook offers a gentle and effective guide to help women understand and begin to overcome the fear or pain that inhibits or blocks their sexuality. Interweaving the voices of women who have struggled with these problems, the authors provide a series of exercises designed to help readers map the terra incognita of their own bodies and sexuality and work through healing treatment plans for specific problems.

NPR Best Book of 2019 A bioethicist’s eloquent and riveting memoir of opioid dependence and withdrawal—a harrowing personal reckoning and clarion call for change not only for government but medicine itself, revealing the lack of crucial resources and structures to handle this insidious nationwide epidemic. Travis Rieder’s terrifying journey down the rabbit hole of opioid dependence began with a motorcycle accident in 2015. Enduring half a dozen surgeries, the drugs he received were both miraculous and essential to his recovery. But his most profound suffering came several months later when he went into acute opioid withdrawal while following his physician’s orders. Over the course of four excruciating weeks, Rieder learned what it means to be “dope sick”—the physical and mental agony caused by opioid dependence. Clueless how to manage his opioid taper, Travis’s doctors suggested he go back on the drugs and try again later. Yet returning to pills out of fear of withdrawal is one route to full-blown addiction. Instead, Rieder continued the painful process of weaning himself. Rieder’s experience exposes a dark secret of American pain management: a healthcare system so conflicted about opioids, and so inept at managing them, that the crisis currently facing us is both unsurprising and inevitable. As he recounts his story, Rieder provides a fascinating look at the history of these drugs first invented in the 1800s, changing attitudes about pain management over the following decades, and the implementation of the pain scale at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He explores both the science of addiction and the systemic and cultural barriers we must overcome if we are to address the problem effectively in the contemporary American healthcare system. In Pain is not only a gripping personal account of dependence, but a groundbreaking exploration of the intractable causes of America’s opioid problem and their implications for resolving the crisis. Rieder makes clear that the opioid crisis exists against a backdrop of real, debilitating pain—and that anyone can fall victim to this epidemic.

A punky, raw novel of millenial disaffection, trauma and 1960s cinema Margot is the child of renowned musicians and the product of a particularly punky upbringing. Burnt-out from the burden of expectation and the bad end of the worst relationship yet, she leaves New York and heads to to the Pacific Northwest. She’s seeking to escape both the eyes of the world and the echoing voice of that last bad man. But a chance encounter with a dubious doctor in a graveyard, and the discovery of a dozen old film reels, opens the door to a study of both the peculiarities of her body and the absurdities of her famous family. A literary take on cinema du corps, Stephanie LaCava’s new novel is an audaciously sexy and moving exploration of culture and connections, bodies and breakdowns.

Dr. John E. Sarno's groundbreaking research on TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome) reveals how stress and other psychological factors can cause back pain-and how you can be pain free without drugs, exercise, or surgery. Dr. Sarno's program has helped thousands of patients find relief from chronic back conditions. In this New York Times bestseller, Dr. Sarno teaches you how to identify stress and other psychological factors that cause back pain and demonstrates how to heal yourself--without drugs, surgery or exercise. Find out: Why self-motivated and successful people are prone to Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS) How anxiety and repressed anger trigger muscle spasms How people condition themselves to accept back pain as inevitable With case histories and the results of in-depth mind-body research, Dr. Sarno reveals how you can recognize the emotional roots of your TMS and sever the connections between mental and physical pain...and start recovering from back pain today.