People living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders experience many obstacles that are often quite challenging for their healthcare providers.  These people have a tremendous amount of grief and loss around their previous level of functioning in addition to a host of other problems that lower their quality of life.  Some of the roadblocks include high levels of denial and resistance to treatment, as well as the attitudes and approaches used by their treatment providers.

To help overcome these obstacles and for healing to occur they must feel listened to, understood, taken seriously and affirmed as human beings.  This is the starting point for them to overcome their treatment resistance and denial.  To do this requires a respect-centered approach utilizing a denial management interactional approach.

This is why I make an effort in my trainings to teach clinicians what I call the Formula for Success which is a process that helps overcome a client’s resistance and denial.  But before I explain the Formula for Success I want to first tell you about the Formula for Disaster.

The formula for disaster starts when a healthcare provider is unaware of a bias or prejudgment they have about their patient.  In their mind they know what the patient needs even before they tell their story.  Often they use what I call a cookie-cutter approach or a one size fits all treatment strategy.  If there is a coexisting addictive disorder, a negative bias or stigma is often involved; after all they’re just an addict. 

This prejudgment is often followed by insensitivity; especially if the clinician is overwhelmed or overworked.  Many times they talk at and work on their patients instead of talking with them and working with them, instead of on them.  Added to this pre-judgment and insensitivity, many clinicians resort to confrontation in order to get their patients to do what they want; this is the “my way or the highway phenomenon.”  This combination almost always leads to a power struggle. 

When I ask people in my trainings who they think usually wins this power struggle, many of them believe it’s the patient, others say the provider. The patient may feel they win because they’re not going to let you put one over on them.  And the provider may feel like they win because they knock the patient into compliance—but it’s usually a malicious compliance.  Some training participants get it right away, nobody really wins.

I believe it’s vitally important to change this dynamic by implementing the formula for success which starts with the provider recognizing, then replacing pre-judgments with understanding.  The best way I know to gain this understanding is to really listen to what the patient is actually saying.  To do this a clinician must use empathic and active listening to make sure they are receiving what the patient is sending.  The next step is to replace insensitivity with compassion and empathy—not sympathy.  Instead of confrontation it is important to use positive strength based challenge.  Sometimes this challenge is a tough love approach; but always with respect and in the best interest of the patient. 

When we pull all of these pieces together we get collaboration instead of power struggles.  This collaboration is the crucial first step for effective healing to occur. That is why the Formula for success is an integral component of the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. 

To learn more about chronic pain management please check out our website at www.addiction-free.com and go to our Publications page and check out my latest book The Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Second Edition. To look for my upcoming trainings please go to our Calendar page.  If you want to learn more about respectful treatment for chronic pain management you can find my article The Right to Quality Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

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