Rachel Hott, PhD – IC19 Short Course 16 – Changing the Language of Pain to Sensation

Description:

How often do we notice our pain, and not our comfort?! Most people only notice pain. When we pay attention to the “sensation,” of pain we have a vocabulary that goes from A-Z to explain what we are feeling. For example, aching, biting, caustic, etc. However, when people think about the sensation of comfort, or attempt to describe how they are feeling without pain, they do not have descriptive language except for adjectives. For example, peaceful, relaxing or calm. In this presentation, participants, along with a demonstration client, will discover the language of ‘comfortable sensations’. For example, flowing, smooth and soft. Once we have explored this comfort language we will explore “sensation shifting” to teach the brain a new way to perceive previously identified chronic pain. When we learn to identify the sensations of comfort we create a new neural pathway for healing and feeling better. This will be an experiential presentation.

Educational Objectives:

1. Create a list of words that describe comfort using sensations descriptions.
2. Define subjective units of disturbance and subjective units of comfort.
3. Demonstrate how to do sensation shifting with a client.

*Sessions may be edited for content and to preserve confidentiality*