In my years of doing bodywork, I have encountered three clients who didn’t respond well to my work.

Each one of them had chronic pain.

Keeping up with the current understanding of chronic pain, it appears that when the tissues from the original injury have healed but pain continues, or re-emerges later, the pain has become based in the brain, not in the tissues, even though that’s where people feel it. It’s called neuroplastic pain (neuro = nervous system, plastic = able to change).

Brain-based doesn’t mean “it’s all in your head,” as in “you’re imagining it.” Nope. If you feel pain, and it hurts, it’s real.

In my own understanding, when an injury is accompanied by, or occurs with or near, a trauma (stress, overwhelm, lack of resources or support), neurons in the brain can wire together and start firing together, sending pain signals long past the healing of the injured tissues.

Similar to PTSD, chronic pain can be triggered by memories and/or emotions in the present that the brain associates with the original injury and trauma.

Effective treatment of chronic pain often responds to a mind-body approach to rewire those neurons. Fortunately, the brain has plasticity. With help, people who suffer can learn to rewire those neurons and eliminate the pain.

I recommend reading The Way Out: A Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven Approach to Healing Chronic Pain by Alan Gordon, LCSW. It’s available on Amazon in several formats.

Here’s a YouTube video about the book.

It’s not that bodywork can’t help. It certainly can. Over the years, I’ve helped numerous people in pain feel a lot better, and often their pain has been longstanding. Sometimes one session does wonders. Sometimes it returns, less severely than before, and we keep working until it resolves.

Sometimes a client with neuroplastic pain finally gets enough relief to resolve the residue of the trauma at the core of their pain, and it never returns.

It’s beautiful when that happens!

We know some things about chronic pain now, and there’s still a lot that’s unknown. Curiosity, inquiry, belief, and patience seem to help.

There are pain coaches who can help. I met one who gets regular craniosacral biodynamics and came in for a session when she was visiting Austin from Colorado. She works remotely. If you want a referral, please let me know. I’m sure there are many others around the country.