There is a systemic problem that sabotages effective treatment for anyone with an addiction problem, but especially people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders. It’s called Competition! In my experience of working with this population, an integrated, multidisciplinary treatment approach is vital to the success and effectiveness of pain management recovery.

But everywhere throughout society competition reigns supreme: in politics, sports, and relationships. It’s fundamental to our American economy and the foundation for every reality program on TV today. Regrettably, in the treatment field, it often develops into what I call Turf Wars between healthcare disciplines. It is also a dynamic that occurs when one agency “competes” with another in order to build their treatment census.

Sadly, the reality is that there is enough pain and suffering in this country, in fact so much that there are not enough treatment beds for everyone who needs our help. It is estimated that there are over 11 million people in the United States alone who have developed a substance use disorder—either abuse or addiction—as a result of living with a chronic pain condition.

Our current system of treating just chronic pain does not offer access to quick and effective treatment and as the population of people with chronic pain grows, this problem will only worsen. This is especially true when someone develops an addictive disorder due to prolonged exposure to psychoactive pain medication. If we really want to contribute to the health and healing of these people, the treatment community must create a new paradigm that values collaboration over competition.

This is why team work is so crucial. We need to work with the whole person, which means treatment plans for the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual domains. This can best be accomplished by using a truly integrated multidisciplinary treatment team with the patient being the Captain of the team. We need to work with patients—not on them.

Over the years I have conducted many Addiction-Free Pain Management® (APM) trainings for agencies that included every treatment discipline. I am always cognizant of the need for teamwork and break participants into random multidisciplinary groups that support them to work collaboratively with each other on different problems or learning skills. By the end of the training amazing results occur.

To learn about the importance of using a team for chronic pain management please read my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you would like to see my upcoming trainings and especially to learn about my 20 hour (three days) Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training on December 7-9, 2009 in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here and scroll down to the December 7-9, 2009 for the description and how to sign up.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

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