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The Institute has provided those living with chronic pain, their family members and their providers evidence-based digestible information about chronic pain for over ten years. We are pleased to be publishing How to Have Hope When There Is No Cure: A Comprehensive Guide to Chronic Pain Rehabilitation. This groundbreaking book is the culmination of decades of work by our late founder, Dr. Murray J McAllister, PsyD, and serves as the pinnacle of our mission; to make pain management more effective by changing the culture of how chronic pain is treated. With the publication of this book, we will no longer be adding new content to our website or social channels, but current content will remain available.
Murray J. McAllister, PsyD
Murray J. McAllister, PsyD, is a pain psychologist and consults to health systems on improving pain. He is the editor and founder of the Institute for Chronic Pain (ICP). The ICP is an educational and public policy think tank. In its mission is to lead the field in making pain management more empirically supported, the ICP provides academic quality information on chronic pain that is approachable to patients and their families.
Chronic Hip Pain
What is chronic hip pain?
Hip pain is common, particularly as people grow older. Sometimes, it occurs in an acute manner, such as when someone falls and has a hip fracture. Other times, it comes and goes, such as when people have bursitis. Sometimes, it lasts longer and can become chronic.
Headache
What is headache?
Headache is a condition marked by pain in the head. There are multiple kinds of headache: tension headache; migraine; cluster; trigeminal neuralgia; and rebound headache.
Foot & Leg Pain
What is foot and leg pain?
Pain in the feet or legs is common. It can be caused by a number of different conditions. The most common conditions that cause pain in the feet and/or legs are the following:
Fibromyalgia
What is fibromyalgia syndrome?
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a common widespread pain condition. It occurs in about 3.4% of women and 0.5% of men.1 It has a typical set of symptoms:
Facial Pain
What is facial pain?
Facial pain is a catchall term for any type of pain in the face. Facial pain can be either acute or chronic. Acute pain is pain that lasts less than six months. Acute pain usually resolves either on its own or with treatment. Examples are sinusitis, infections of the mouth or gums, or injuries to the face, such as a black eye or broken nose. Chronic facial pain is pain that either lasts continuously for over six months or occurs on a fluctuating basis over a period of six months or longer. Examples are trigeminal neuralgia and temporomandibular joint disorder.
Degenerative Disc Disease
What is degenerative disc disease?
Degenerative disc disease is one of the most common diagnoses for people with back pain. The diagnosis is often alarming to patients. It sounds terrible. It sounds like they have a disease that is deteriorating the discs in their spine. It also sounds like it’s inevitably going to get worse. These reactions to the diagnosis are common.
Conversion Disorder
What is conversion disorder?
A conversion disorder is a nerve-related condition that is due to psychological stress or trauma. While not fully understood, the symptoms develop in response to stress or trauma that lead to intolerable conflict. The psychological cause may occur in one instance or on a repetitive basis prior to onset of symptoms. Onset of this type of nerve-related symptom can occur immediately after the stressor or trauma, or it can occur after a delay of many years.
Back Pain
What is chronic back pain?
Back pain affects most everyone at some point. At any given time, 25% of the population will have had low back pain in the previous three months. It is one of the most common reasons for medical visits.1, 2 Fortunately, the vast majority of cases of new back pain will resolve within a few weeks to months.3
Rheumatoid Arthritis
What is rheumatoid arthritis?
In general, arthritis is a common pain condition marked by inflammation of the joints. The inflammation causes pain, swelling, and stiffness. Such inflammation is largely common to all types of arthritis.
Osteoarthritis
What is osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis is a common form of arthritis. It is a pain condition marked by inflammation of the joints. The inflammation causes pain, swelling, and stiffness. Osteoarthritis can occur in any joint of the body.
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Opioid Tapering as an Exposure-based Therapy for Chronic Pain
“Thank you. I’m so grateful to all of you. You’ve given me my life back… but why did it take so long for me to be referred to this program?” This series of statements, along with the concluding question, is… -
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Pain?
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a traditional form of therapy that is used for a great many types of health conditions. Historically beginning in the 1970’s, it was first used as treatments for chronic pain and depression,1, 2 but later applied to… -
Why See a Psychologist for Pain?
People are sometimes surprised that there are psychologists who are not mental health providers. It’s also true for people with persistent pain who might wonder why their physician referred them to a psychologist for the management of pain. ‘I’m not… -
Whatever Happened to Backache?
You’d think that we’d all agree on what back pain is. Pain in the low back is almost as common as days of the week. Most everyone has had or will have back pain in the course of their lives… -
Should the Definition of Opioid Addiction Change?
Twenty some odd years ago, the American Academy of Pain Medicine and the American Pain Society, two large pain-related professional organizations, teamed up to agree upon what it means to have both chronic pain and be addicted to opioid pain…
