The Song of Our Scars: The Untold Story of Pain 


By Haider Warraich (Author, Narrator), Fajer Al-Kaisi (Narrator), Basic Books (Publisher)

From Amazon.com:  A doctor’s personal and unsparing account of how modern medicine’s failure to understand pain has made care less effective

In The Song of Our Scars, physician Haider Warraich offers a bold reexamination of the nature of pain, not as a simple physical sensation, but as a cultural experience.

Warraich, himself a sufferer of chronic pain, considers the ways our notions of pain have been shaped not just by science but by politics and power, by whose suffering mattered and whose didn’t. He weaves a provocative history from the Renaissance, when pain transformed into a medical issue, through the racial legacy of pain tolerance, to the opiate epidemics of both the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, to the cutting edge of present-day pain science. The conclusion is clear: only by reckoning with both pain’s complicated history and its biology can today’s doctors adequately treat their patients’ suffering.

Trenchant and deeply felt, The Song of Our Scarsis an indictment of a broken system and a plea for a more holistic understanding of the human body.”

Hope and Help for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia

 

Hope and Help for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, by Russell HoweAlan Logan, & Alison Bested, MD.  (2008)

From Amazon.com: “Hope and Help for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia is designed to educate patients suffering from CFS/FM about their illnesses and to teach them coping skills that will improve their quality of life. And while the good news is that people who suffer from CFS/FM aren’t dying, the bad news is that it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to get better since there is no one specific treatment that works for everyone.

Some of the issues covered are:

  • Understanding the symptoms and how diagnoses are made
  • Causes of CFS/FM and common psychological consequences, including anxiety and depression
  • The role of stress and how to manage it
  • The connection between the mind and the body in coping with CFS/FM
  • The potential of medications, nutrition, and lifestyle changes
  • The role of complementary medications and dietary supplements in pain management
  • The value and limitations of alternative and complementary therapies such as acupuncture, massage, homeopathy, and aromatherapy
  • Legal issues about how to deal with medical and legal problems that may arise if insurance benefits have been stopped”

Managing Chronic Illness Using the Four-Phase Treatment Approach: A Mental Health Professional’s Guide to Helping Chronically Ill People

Managing Chronic Illness Using the Four-Phase Treatment Approach: A Mental Health Professional’s Guide to Helping Chronically Ill People, by Patricia A. Fennell. (2003)

From Amazon.com: “A pioneering book to help maximize the quality of life for chronically ill patients Written by a leading authority on chronic illness treatment and management, Managing Chronic Illness Using the Four-Phase Treatment Approach provides evidence-based practice guidelines for clinicians to help their clients with debilitating health problems embrace a new “normal,” understand the cyclical nature of their illness, and function at the highest level possible.

Patricia Fennell’s groundbreaking model for understanding chronic illness identifies and describes four broad phases experienced by the chronically ill: crisis, stabilization, resolution, and integration. Using a broad array of case histories, Fennell vividly illustrates what clients need at each phase and how to assess and respond to them compassionately. Fennell also suggests how clinicians may best use their own changing experiences in their work to help clients transition through the four phases.

The goal of the “Four-Phase Model” is to maximize a client’s quality of life without offering false hope for a cure, making it an effective treatment strategy for diverse client populations, including people with physiological diseases; patients whose lives are being prolonged by modern medicine; and people who suffer from addiction, post-traumatic stress syndrome, intractable pain, and post-rape and abuse conditions.

Complete with detailed treatment protocols for documenting a client’s symptoms and quality of life at each phase, Managing Chronic Illness Using the Four-Phase Treatment Approach is a highly practical book for everyone working with chronically ill clients.”

The Chronic Illness Workbook: Strategies and Solutions for Taking Back Your Life

 

The Chronic Illness Workbook: Strategies and Solutions for Taking Back Your Life, by Patricia A Fennell. (2012).

From Amazon.com: “THE CHRONIC ILLNESS WORKBOOK brings clarity and order to what feels like an unmanageable and isolating experience. It shows both those who are ill and those who care for them how to live a full and meaningful life despite undeniable difficulties. Using her extensive experience with chronic illness patients, Patricia Fennell has created an original, comprehensive, research-validated approach that considers not only the physical aspects of chronic illness, but the psychological, social, and economic apsects as well.”

Study Identifies Risk Factors for Opioid Death

Study Identifies Risk Factors for Opioid Death

December 8, 2017

At Goodtherapy.org

Contributed by Zawn Villines, GoodTherapy.org Correspondent

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/study-identifies-risk-factors-for-opioid-death-128171?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=d6443e0b8b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_135946a8dd-d6443e0b8b-71304725