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Sabrina Philippe (Psychologist)
New research has revealed that the combination of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) associated with tailor-made exercises could make it possible to live better with pain, and to reduce its intensity.
If you are one of those people who have been suffering from your back regularly for several months (chronic low back pain is one of the main causes of disability), perhaps you should consider lying down… on a couch, in addition to painkillers and recommended rest. New research from the Goethe University of Frankfurt has just established that the combination of tailor-made exercises coupled with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could be the optimal approach to treating chronic back pain. Why ? Because TTC would make it possible, beyond the pain, to change the way people experience a painful situation, while improving it.
CBT, 86% more effective than exercise alone
The German study analyzed data from 58 randomized controlled trials including more than 10,000 people with chronic low back pain. The researchers looked at the effectiveness of three different treatment approaches:
- Standard exercise (like Pilates);
- Individualized care (eg physiotherapy);
- Individualized care coupled with CBT, a talk therapy aimed at changing a person’s thoughts and behaviors.
Results: Individualized care was found to be 38% more effective in reducing pain than standard exercise treatments because it focuses more on the patient, their pain and their needs.
However, when combined with cognitive behavioral therapy, this efficacy was 84% better than standard treatment alone. Results noticed in the first three months, which however last for a year.
According to the study, whether your pain is muscle, posture-related, joint, weight-related, or even cancer-related, CBT can probably help. This therapy is not, in fact, a long and deep introspection but allows a quick and satisfactory correction of a single problem that has taken control of a life. It is also not a painkiller per se. It’s about reviewing unnecessary thoughts and behaviors to replace them with balanced, even positive thoughts.
A change of thought about her pain
So while CBT can’t change your pain, it can transform unnecessary or negative pain-related thought patterns. Study researchers noted that after CBT, participants were less afraid to move.
A proposed diversion
CBT also allows another useful tool to fight against pain: distraction. Indeed, being very aware of your pain induces you to constantly feel it and record it. CBT can also teach you to focus on other, more positive things and shift your attention elsewhere, say scientists.
“Getting out of the submission imposed by pain”
For Sabrina Philippe, psychologist and member of the Doctissimo expert committee, the study highlights an important fact:
“Pain is by nature obsessive, it invades our thoughts, our gestures and often leaves us little space.”
But in the context of chronic pain, therapy seems to him to be a very useful and complementary option:
“Behavioral therapy, like hypnosis, has a positive effect on pain, because it leads the patient to treat his pain himself. When we are subjected to pain, we feel invaded by it, submissive, as if it were impossible for us to act on it, a feeling that most often depresses us. But when taking analgesics is not possible in the long term (as is the case in chronic lower back pain) then therapy allows you to take action on this pain again, to regain control, which releases a lot of stress,” she insists.
As for whether the therapy can be useful for everyone, the psychologist sees only one limit to this: the intensity of the pain. “Some serious pains are too sharp to overcome. But in the case of back pain, which is a chronic pain experienced by many adults, it really allows you to manage the feeling and take control of your life again” she confirms.