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The Chronic Pain Care Workbook: A Self-Treatment Approach to Pain Relief Using the Behavioral Assessment of Pain Questionnaire
A Powerful Step-by-Step Approach to Dealing with Chronic Pain
Sixteen years ago, psychologist and author Michael Lewandowski devised a series of questions for patients suffering from chronic pain to identify specific factors that aggravate and perpetuate pain. Those questions became the Behavioral Assessment of Pain (BAP) questionnaire, which is now used throughout the world in the treatment of chronic pain. Now, for the first time, this book brings this powerful set of tools to people just like you who are looking for a way to live better with pain.
The tools in this book will give you control over your own pain-management process by helping you monitor your responses to pain. Use the assessments to help gauge your levels of physical and emotional pain, sleep habits, and general ability to function throughout the day. Then put the book's practical advice to work to maintain a higher quality of life despite pain. Ultimately, you'll start to achieve higher activity levels and a greater degree of fulfillment.
Use these techniques to:
Reduce fatigue and boost energy levels Manage medication use wisely Change your thoughts about chronic pain Stop avoiding pleasurable activities Limit emotional pain and suffering Enjoy greater family, social, and intimate engagement
Sixteen years ago, psychologist and author Michael Lewandowski devised a series of questions for patients suffering from chronic pain to identify specific factors that aggravate and perpetuate pain. Those questions became the Behavioral Assessment of Pain (BAP) questionnaire, which is now used throughout the world in the treatment of chronic pain. Now, for the first time, this book brings this powerful set of tools to people just like you who are looking for a way to live better with pain.
The tools in this book will give you control over your own pain-management process by helping you monitor your responses to pain. Use the assessments to help gauge your levels of physical and emotional pain, sleep habits, and general ability to function throughout the day. Then put the book's practical advice to work to maintain a higher quality of life despite pain. Ultimately, you'll start to achieve higher activity levels and a greater degree of fulfillment.
Use these techniques to:
Reduce fatigue and boost energy levels Manage medication use wisely Change your thoughts about chronic pain Stop avoiding pleasurable activities Limit emotional pain and suffering Enjoy greater family, social, and intimate engagement
- GenresSelf Help
240 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2006
14 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 1, 2020
The book overflows with confusions of correlation with causation. For example:
- Patients exhibiting more catastrophic thinking report increased pain. The book implies the ideas aggravate the pain. Perhaps those with more serious conditions report both more catastrophic thinking and increased pain.
- Patients who reported lower treatment satisfaction (i.e. more pain) after 12 months were more likely to have consulted/visited physicians more times and were more likely to be depressed. The book implies that having more visits caused the depression and reduced satisfaction. Maybe (in my view, probably) the patients with more difficult-to-treat conditions visited more doctors and ended up more depressed.
- Patients with more solicitous partners (spouses, etc.) reported more pain. The book implies that helping out your spouse when they are in pain will only lead to more pain. Perhaps partners who see more pain are more likely to empathize and learn how to help effectively.
In reference to this last example, and in the most egregious example of sloppy scholarship in the book, the author describes a study (Flor et al. 1995) in which chronic pain patients were subjected to "electric shocks" while hooked up to an EKG. According to this book, the study found that "The 'help' of these solicitous spouses had actually conditioned the subjects to feel pain more strongly." This sounds accurate given the description of the study provided. Already skeptical of the claim, but intrigued because this would imply significant changes in my own life, I looked up the study itself.
The description in this book is incredibly wrong.
I couldn't tell you whether the author is honestly mistaken, or possibly modifying the procedure and outcome of the study to suit his own views. Either way, almost everything in the book's description of the study is false. Even immaterial details, like that the study involved "electric shocks" according to this book rather than the cold pressor test (hand submerged in ice water) actually tested, are incorrect. The unforgivable mistake is the claim that subjects with solicitous spouses felt pain more strongly. In fact, the heart rate and blood pressure monitors were monitored in both the patients and their partners, and it was the partners who responded more strongly to pain described by the patients. In other words, partners respond with more empathy if the partner in pain is a chronic pain patient than if the partner is an experimental control.
That result would not have shocked me in the least. Instead, the author is promoting the idea that spouses helping their partners in chronic pain are actually doing more harm than good. WTF?
The book also frequently suggests changing ideas or beliefs that are negatively impacting chronic pain. The issue of whether or not those beliefs are true is carefully avoided. Not everyone is capable of changing their beliefs based merely on utilitarian value (as the author apparently did with the aforementioned study). As an example, I believe no one should have to suffer chronic pain. According to the book, this puts me at Level 3 on the Entitlement/Frustration scale, which will cause "problems with expectations that are unrealistic." I suppose author wants me to change my mind and believe that chronic pain sufferers do deserve their pain. This would help me. Somehow.
The book is full of contradictions. More physicians negatively correlates with treatment satisfaction, but you should seek a second opinion. Stop paying so much attention to your pain, but take action as soon as a flare-up begins rather than waiting until it becomes too much. Take your pain medications on a regular schedule, but time your medications to coincide with painful activities.
- Patients exhibiting more catastrophic thinking report increased pain. The book implies the ideas aggravate the pain. Perhaps those with more serious conditions report both more catastrophic thinking and increased pain.
- Patients who reported lower treatment satisfaction (i.e. more pain) after 12 months were more likely to have consulted/visited physicians more times and were more likely to be depressed. The book implies that having more visits caused the depression and reduced satisfaction. Maybe (in my view, probably) the patients with more difficult-to-treat conditions visited more doctors and ended up more depressed.
- Patients with more solicitous partners (spouses, etc.) reported more pain. The book implies that helping out your spouse when they are in pain will only lead to more pain. Perhaps partners who see more pain are more likely to empathize and learn how to help effectively.
In reference to this last example, and in the most egregious example of sloppy scholarship in the book, the author describes a study (Flor et al. 1995) in which chronic pain patients were subjected to "electric shocks" while hooked up to an EKG. According to this book, the study found that "The 'help' of these solicitous spouses had actually conditioned the subjects to feel pain more strongly." This sounds accurate given the description of the study provided. Already skeptical of the claim, but intrigued because this would imply significant changes in my own life, I looked up the study itself.
The description in this book is incredibly wrong.
I couldn't tell you whether the author is honestly mistaken, or possibly modifying the procedure and outcome of the study to suit his own views. Either way, almost everything in the book's description of the study is false. Even immaterial details, like that the study involved "electric shocks" according to this book rather than the cold pressor test (hand submerged in ice water) actually tested, are incorrect. The unforgivable mistake is the claim that subjects with solicitous spouses felt pain more strongly. In fact, the heart rate and blood pressure monitors were monitored in both the patients and their partners, and it was the partners who responded more strongly to pain described by the patients. In other words, partners respond with more empathy if the partner in pain is a chronic pain patient than if the partner is an experimental control.
That result would not have shocked me in the least. Instead, the author is promoting the idea that spouses helping their partners in chronic pain are actually doing more harm than good. WTF?
The book also frequently suggests changing ideas or beliefs that are negatively impacting chronic pain. The issue of whether or not those beliefs are true is carefully avoided. Not everyone is capable of changing their beliefs based merely on utilitarian value (as the author apparently did with the aforementioned study). As an example, I believe no one should have to suffer chronic pain. According to the book, this puts me at Level 3 on the Entitlement/Frustration scale, which will cause "problems with expectations that are unrealistic." I suppose author wants me to change my mind and believe that chronic pain sufferers do deserve their pain. This would help me. Somehow.
The book is full of contradictions. More physicians negatively correlates with treatment satisfaction, but you should seek a second opinion. Stop paying so much attention to your pain, but take action as soon as a flare-up begins rather than waiting until it becomes too much. Take your pain medications on a regular schedule, but time your medications to coincide with painful activities.
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July 14, 2025Awesome book of you are dealing with pain. I wish I’d read it six months earlier. A lot of what took me a year to learn is summarized nicely in this book.
December 25, 2016
Unlike many of the self-help books out there on chronic pain, this one isn't just yet another explanation of what you have. It is a very solution-oriented book full of useful exercises and urges readers to take the reins in their treatment of chronic pain. Very useful for those suffering from fibromyalgia, arthritis, lupus, other inflammatory diseases, or even those who have acute pain from injuries that have sprung up and taken you by surprise. Very helpful. The reason I am giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 is as follows: my only criticism is why the publisher did not release it in a spiral-bound format, and the other thing that is annoying is that the author's website is no longer active so you can't find the downloads of sheets he promises to give you.
March 21, 2011
I am a bit biased but I loved this read. Great book! Very informative.
August 29, 2008
An absoulte necessity for anyone who suffers from Chronic Pain
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews