Comparing Single-Session Therapies for Chronic Pain

Summary

Many people in the US suffer from chronic pain. Often times, individuals who have chronic pain also feel depressed, anxious, or hopeless, which can worsen pain. Psychologists, therefore, have developed several treatments to help people with chronic pain. These psychological treatments differ. The most common treatment is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for chronic pain, which helps patients better manage pain through changing thoughts and behaviors. Two newer, less common psychological therapies are Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and Emotion Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET). These therapies emphasize that chronic pain is mainly due to plastic processes of over-sensitization in the brain and nervous system, and that psychotherapies can significantly reduce or eliminate pain. Although similar, PRT and EAET stress different aspects of treatment. PRT emphasizes that one's fear of pain and bodily injury maintains the brain's sense of threat, thereby also maintaining the pain response; EAET emphasizes that one's conditioned psychological state of stress and tension maintains a sense of threat, thereby maintaining the pain response. These three treatments have yet to be compared; it is unclear which psychological processes are most important to treating chronic pain.

There is growing interest in single-session psychotherapy interventions. Studies have shown that just a single session of CBT or EAET can help individuals reduce their pain. PRT has yet to be condensed to a single-session intervention.

This study will compare a single session of CBT, PRT, and EAET with a no-treatment control group to test whether 1) one treatment outperforms the others, and 2) different mechanisms/ approaches matter to chronic pain treatment.

Conditions

• Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT endorses a pain management model and teaches people skills to cope with chronic pain through reframing thoughts and encouraging behavioral change.

BEHAVIORAL

Pain Reprocessing Therapy

PRT advocates a pain treatment model in which pain can be substantially reduced by helping people learn that their pain is brain-based and can be substantially reduced or eliminated by decreasing fear of pain and bodily injury and providing education on the neuroscience of pain.

BEHAVIORAL

Emotion Awareness and Expression Therapy

EAET advocates a pain treatment model in which pain can be substantially reduced by helping people learn that their pain is brain-based and can be substantially reduced or eliminated by decreasing fear of pain and of various emotional/interpersonal problems.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Mark A. Lumley

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-07-15

Primary Completion

2026-06-30

Completion

2026-08-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations