Confronting trauma alleviates chronic pain!

Q: Is hiding painful things from some weak-hearted people good? 

Krishna: NO!

Our soap operas and movies say as some  people cannot bear pain from trauma, it is better to hide things from them.

However, science has a different view on this. A new study found chronic pain among older adults could be significantly reduced through a newly developed psychotherapy that works by confronting past trauma and stress-related emotions that can exacerbate pain symptoms.

Published in JAMA Network Open on June 13, the study compared the newer therapy, known as emotional awareness and expression therapy, or EAET, to traditional cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, in treating chronic pain as well as mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among older veterans.

The study found that 63% of veterans who underwent EAET reported at least a 30% reduction in pain—a clinically significant reduction—after treatment compared to only 17% of veterans who underwent cognitive behavioral therapy.

Pain reduction was sustained among 41% of EAET participants six months after treatment compared to 14% of CBT patients. Additionally, EAET patients reported greater benefits for addressing anxiety, depression, PTSD and life satisfaction.

Most people with chronic pain don't consider psychotherapy at all. They're thinking along the lines of medications, injections, sometimes surgery or bodily treatments like physical therapy.
Psychotherapy is an evidence-based treatment for chronic pain. What this study adds is that the type of psychotherapy matters.
EAET has one primary intervention: experiencing, expressing and releasing emotions.
Developed in the 2010s, the therapy aims to show patients that the brain's perception of pain is strongly influenced by stress-related emotions. Patients are asked to focus on a stressful interaction, from anything as mundane as being cut off by a driver to severe traumas .
The purpose is to have patients experience these emotions both in mind and in body. The patients then work to confront these emotions, express their reactions and ultimately to let go.
If there is a hurt or stressor people have a series of normal, natural emotional reactions. There might be anger, guilt and sadness. Because these feelings are painful, people often avoid them, but EAET helps people face difficult feelings with honesty and self-compassion. In therapy, they can release anger, pain and guilt that they've been carrying and are left with self-compassion in the end.

So tell people everything without hiding things from them,  but slowly in a tactful manner. If you can't do this properly, engage specialists to do this. 

Allow people to face reality as it is. Let them face the battles of life head on. This will definitely strengthen their minds. 

Life is not a bed of roses. You have to face thorns too. They might hurt, physically or mentally. But people have to learn how to deal with hurts and pains. This learning process will make them strong in the end. Hiding things might help soap operas stretch endlessly but  they don't help human minds in any way. On the contrary they make people mentally weak if they think everything in life is like a walk in the park.

Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain in Older Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.15842. jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman … tworkopen.2024.15842