The Chronic Pain Treatment Gap
A common frustration I hear: “Why is it so hard to find a practitioner who treats both trauma and chronic pain?”
Many pain specialists focus on managing symptoms, not resolving them. On the other hand, many trauma therapists don’t specialize in chronic pain. But these two issues are deeply connected—if you’ve had chronic pain after trauma, an accident, or prolonged stress, you need a treatment approach that integrates both perspectives.
How Trauma Gets Stuck in the Body & Becomes Chronic Pain
When you experience trauma, your nervous system shifts into protection mode (fight, flight, freeze, fawn). If the trauma isn’t fully processed, your body keeps reacting as if the threat is still present—even years later. This can show up as:
- Chronic tension, inflammation, and pain that have no clear medical cause.
- Heightened pain sensitivity—your nervous system misinterprets safe signals as dangerous.
- Physical symptoms that change based on stress or emotions (a key sign of neuroplastic pain).
- A pain-fear cycle—where pain itself becomes a trigger, keeping your system on high alert.
If we only treat pain at the symptom level (pain meds, PT, or pain coping techniques), we miss the deeper trauma keeping it stuck.
Why Symptom Management Alone Isn’t Enough
Most traditional pain treatments focus on helping you live with pain, not resolving it. Techniques like pacing, mindfulness, and medication can help—but they don’t rewire the brain’s response to pain.
Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and deep brain therapies like Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), Brainspotting, and EMDR go further by:
- Teaching the brain to interpret pain differently—reducing the fear response that keeps it stuck.
- Rewiring the nervous system to stop sending false pain signals.
- Processing unresolved trauma, which is often at the root of chronic pain.
- Sending updated sensory information to your limbic system which is frozen in time.
This isn’t about “thinking your pain away”—it’s about changing how the brain and body experience pain on a fundamental level.
The Power of Therapy Intensives for Chronic Pain & Trauma
Many people spend years trying different treatments with little success. When pain is deeply wired into your system, progress can feel slow in weekly therapy—just as you’re getting into something, the session ends.
That’s where Therapy Intensives come in. Instead of waiting months for relief, we spend focused, uninterrupted time (2-4 hours) working through the pain-fear cycle and untangling stuck trauma responses.
Each session is treated like an experiment—we test different approaches, see how your system responds, and adjust in real time. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions, but this flexibility allows us to find what works for you.
Some people experience relief after just one intensive session—something they weren’t able to access after months or years of traditional pain treatments. Others need more time. There are no guarantees—but there are possibilities.
Is a Therapy Intensive Right for You?
You might be a good fit for a Therapy Intensive if:
✔️ Your chronic pain started after trauma, an accident, or a high-stress period.
✔️ You’ve tried PT, pain meds, or talk therapy, but nothing has fully resolved the issue.
✔️ Your pain changes based on stress, emotions, or environment (a sign it’s neuroplastic).
✔️ You’re open to trying different techniques to see what works for your system.
Next Steps: Ready to Finally Get Relief?
You don’t have to keep cycling through treatments that only scratch the surface. Therapy Intensives allow us to work deeply in a shorter amount of time.
I offer in-person sessions in Portland and virtual sessions across Oregon. If this approach speaks to you, let’s talk about whether it’s the right fit.
