Entries by The Pain PT

Highly Sensitive Brain Associated with Chronic Pain

One of the things I see in a lot of patients I work with is high sensitivity. Many have heard of the highly sensitive person (HSP) and you may think of yourself as one. Studies show relationships between high sensitivity and neuroplastic symptoms. In one sample of adolescents who reported chronic pain, the proportion of […]

Emotion Regulation and Self-Compassion in Relation to Symptoms

Let’s go to the evidence!  After taking a break through the summer and fall I am getting back to sharing the evidence with you all to support the work I do here with neuroplastic symptoms. Let’s look at this study today. This recent paper (July 2025) titled: “The Relationship Between Difficulties in Emotion Regulation, Self-Compassion, […]

The amygdala plays a role in pain and neuroplastic symptoms

Many people believe pain is just physical- meaning it’s your body. What most people don’t understand is the role of the brain in physical pain and neuroplastic symptoms- physical symptoms that are produced by the brain not the body. In this video I review a paper from 2020 (link here) that looked at the role […]

Join me LIVE September 10th on TMS Roundtable Recovery

Please join me live tomorrow September 10th at 10am Pacific 1pm Eastern time. I will be talking about about the mind-body relationship on the TMS Roundtable Recovery. I am grateful to host Doc Tovah and co-host Jeannie Kulwin for having me on. If you are interested in joining the broadcast live or watching later here […]

Catastrophizing and why it’s important to shift it

One of the well-studied mental-emotional constructs with chronic pain and symptom disorders is called pain catastrophizing. It is a cognitive distortion where one thinks for the worst when it comes symptoms. Here I lay out some of the strong evidence which shows the negative power of catastrophizing and why we need to shift for healing. […]

What Emotion Are You Feeling Now?

Emotions are undercurrents running in our bodies. Many times emotions sit underneath thoughts, physical symptoms, behaviors and actions. Research indicates we are feeling at least one emotion 90% of the time during the day. Some research also shows many people (upwards of 50%) with chronic pain and other medically unexplained physical symptoms have what’s called […]

The Cause of Physical Symptoms: Brain or Body?

So important to distinguish the cause of physical symptoms in the body. What many people don’t realize and I didn’t either until I started specializing in this field, is that the brain itself can produce the very same symptoms the body can produce. We have to look at a person’s full history to understand where […]

Mind-Body Medicine from a Physician’s Perspective

I spoke with Dr. Rebecca Kennedy about her transition from traditional primary care to the mind-body practice she runs today. Slowly, gradually, the medical world is starting to wake up to the mind-body connection and the role the brain, stress, emotions, and trauma play in the production and persistence of somatic symptoms.  I hope you […]

Embrace to Erase instead of Resist to Persist

I shared a few videos about this concept which you can check out below. It’s true what we resist will persist and what we can embrace we can erase. Especially when it comes to emotions. And emotions are one of the main causes of unexplained medical symptoms in the body. The key thing to being […]

What’s your Diagnoses?

Check out this video to understand that your diagnoses may not be chronic fatigue, migraines, IBS, or chronic pain, or any other medical diagnoses. It may be one or both of these official diagnoses I lay out here. How many of your health practitioners have given you either of these diagnoses? My guess is not […]