Episode 71: Pain & Identity - Practical Ways to Rebuild the Self
Description
Pain can steal roles, confidence, and connection. Tim and Bart explore how to spot identity loss and how to guide patients toward a values-led, reconstructed sense of self using language, movement, small wins, and co-created experiments.
Why identity matters: chronic pain often causes biographical disruption—a break in the story of “who I am.”
Neuro/psycho frame: predictive processing and the “model of me”—how ongoing threat can dominate self-inference.
Clinician toolkit:
Narrative reframing (precision over catastrophising).
Values clarification (ACT-informed prompts that patients can actually answer).
Small wins & the Three Gifts practice to re-evidence competence and joy.
Co-creation & teams to expand the landscape of affordances.
Vignettes: CRPS-style limb disownership language; makeup/hair example as “new me” exploration.
Micro-experiments: safe, graded role re-entries across movement, connection, work, and creativity.
Resources Mentioned:
Le Pub Scientifique Free Membership (includes Sleep Clinical Action Plan).
Prior conversations with Lance McCracken, Laura Rathbone, Bronnie Lennox Thompson (in the Le Pub library).
Connect & Subscribe:
Le Pub Scientifique—free membership for clinicians & people living with pain. Share the episode if it helped you or your patients.
#chronicpain #identity #ACT #physiotherapy #values #predictiveprocessing #CPPS #CRPS #narrativereframing #rehab
United States
