Product Description
If you suffer from chronic pain, this proven 10-step program brings hope and relief, showing you how gradual changes in specific behaviors can lead to great improvements in your ability to cope. Psychologists Turk and Winters’ recommendations are based on solid research that shows what works and on their success with thousands of patients. Unlike the authors of other pain books, they promise no miracle cures, but they do help you learn "not to let your body push you around" so life becomes enjoyable again. The key lessons in this book include • Uncovering some of the myths about pain and the deceptive ways it fools your body into unconstructive behavior • Pacing your activity, so you build strength without overdoing or underdoing it • Learning how to induce deep relaxation so you can begin to enjoy life again • Dealing with disturbed sleep and chronic fatigue • Improving your relations with family and friends, and soliciting support • Changing your habitual behaviors in ways that reduce pain • Combating the negative thinking that often accompanies pain • Regaining your self-confidence and trust in yourself • The power of goal-setting and humor • Dealing with the inevitable relapses and setbacks once improvement has set in Workbook exercises, behavior logs, and suggested readings help you integrate these lessons into your daily life and learn to live well despite pain.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 14 reviews)

Great book on pain by sg (TN)

5 Stars
January 24, 2009
Dr Turk is a well-known specialist in pain management. This book is very nicely written in a supportive yet matter-of-fact way. He explains the differences in chronic and acute pain and offers a number of suggestions to learn to cope with pain. I think this book will be useful to both those with chronic pain and to the family members who struggle to help and understand them.

it really works by searching (richmond, va)

5 Stars
September 28, 2008
I have been working through this book with a counselor who deals primarily with chronic pain patients. It is already starting to change my life, even though I am only on the third technique. After > 2 years trying to learn to live with chronic pain, I am finding techniques that are making a difference!

An essential book to help you survive by W. Miller

5 Stars
July 03, 2008
When chronic pain became my life I thought it was over. Sometimes things were so black I had no idea how I would go forth. It seems like the pain destroys everything and while it's unlikely you'll have what you once did these tips over you a chance at a life worth living. This book doesn't offer false hope or miracle cures or expensive things that you can't afford anyway. It offers tips, advice, and most of hope on regaining your life.

Don't waste your money... by Chandra Welter (Beaverton, Oregon, USA)

2 Stars
June 19, 2008
This book (and another) were recommended to me by a doctor in a pain clinic. The only way that this book would ever be helpful is if someone is new to chronic pain. Being that I'd been dealing with my chronic, intractable pain for 6 years prior to reading the book, most of the information contained in the book were dealing with issues I've long come to terms with. It also very much implies that taking narcotics in any way for a long term is not the solution for chronic pain, when that couldn't be further from the truth for very many people. I was offended by the overall tone in the book that seemed to come off that all persons taking narcotics for pain were addicts, in many instances. This book was not helpful to me. It may be helpful to you if you don't yet know how to cope with life-long severe pain. However, if I were you, I'd first research intractable pain - there are much better resources out there than this book, and most of them are free on the web. Here's to a managable day! Sincerely, Chandra Welter

Very workable program by J. Hand (southern Indiana)

5 Stars
January 29, 2008
I have chronic pain syndrome as a result of a couple of spinal cord injuries. Sometimes it is more than a bit overwhelming. The hard part is the way the pain is always there. Sometimes it's worse; sometimes it's tolerable. But, it never stops. What I have found over the years is that if you suffer from chronic pain doctors are a sorry lot for the most part. If you have a good one, you are truly blessed. The ones I encountered seem they either don't understand your suffering, don't believe the degree of your suffering, or just don't care. None seem adept at offering any coping advice beyond a shrug and anti-depressants. Almost all practice with a greater concern that the DEA is looking over their shoulder at the pain medicine they prescribe than helping you as their patient. Even pain specialists I have seen seem to be more hi tech gadget sales people than care givers. Or they are the worst of the skeptics in believing the patient. It's hard to find anybody who cares or understands what you're going through. Except you. That's what's so empowering about this book. It makes no excuses and pulls no punches about the medical profession, friends, family, and the sorry way they almost all treat pain sufferers. The emphasis here is that YOU have to seize the initiative and guide yourself down the path of getting some sembelence of a life back. What's contained here is a simple method to find the parameters you can function in as you explore what you can and can't do. There are easy to follow tips and guides that help you document your condition as you follow the program. Not only is this useful for you as a timeline to measure progress, but it provides a solid database to present to your physcian which may help him/her understand what you are going through. But, just like following a diet plan or an exercise regimen, it's up to you to follow it through. The approach isn't pie in the sky and there are no claims that you'll find some miracle cure or fix. It's an instruction manual on how to seize back as much of your life as you can from the pain that holds you down. My next visit to my Neurologist will have me showing him this book and trying to resist the urge to slap him upside the head with it. Just the first 1/4 of it has done more for me than seeing him over the past 3 years has done. Mostly, this program has given me hope. That's something he never even thought to offer.

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	Managing Pain Before It Manages You, Third Edition by Margaret A. Caudill MD PhD MPH (Author), MD Herbert Benson (Foreword) Imagine finding a way to spend less time in doctors’ offices, and to decrease the discomfort, depression, and anxiety associated with chronic pain. Managing Pain Before It Manages You offers just that--a program to help you reduce your pain and learn coping skills to get your life back. Developed over the author’s many years of working with chronic pain sufferers, this program has been proven effective. Program participants report that they have been able to take...
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	Managing Pain Before It Manages You, Revised Edition by Margaret A. Caudill MD PhD MPH (Author), Margaret A. Caudill (Author) Consumer workbook features updated coverage of commonly used pain medications and specific pain disorders, current nutritional recommendations, and a new appendix on complementary alternative medicine. Includes new ideas on coping with pain flare-ups, staying active, accomplishing personal goals, and more.
	Living Beyond Your Pain: Using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy to Ease Chronic Pain by Joanne Dahl (Author), Tobias Lundgren (Author) A rich and rewarding life is possible for those of us who live with chronic pain. Based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), one of the most promising and fastest growing psychotherapies being practiced today, this book breaks with conventional notions of pain management. These "feel good" approaches—including the use of pain-killing medication—all work to prevent painful sensations. The ACT approach, however, begins with the assumption that pain is a normal part of living that...