Acceptance And Commitment Therapy For Chronic Pain (Paperback)

by Joanne Dahl (Author), Kelly G. Wilson (Author), Carmen Luciano (Author), Steven C. Hayes (Author)
Key Phrases: valued life directions, valued directions, chronic pain client, The Therapeutic Relationship, Values Assessment, Getting Stuck (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Aimed at professionals working with clients who are stuck in chronic pain, this book provides both a new conceptualization of this difficult problem and practical guidelines about how to treat it from an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) perspective. The book alternates between the story of a chronic pain patient named Elisabeth, and the scientific and clinical reasons to approach her struggle in a new way. The book addresses case formulation and clinical technique in a practical "hands on" way, with frequent therapeutic dialogues as examples. Rehabilitation specialists, psychologists, physicians, nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and social workers will all find the volume to be of use. The senior author, JoAnne Dahl, has worked in rehabilitation medicine for over 25 years and more recently with some of the founders of ACT: Steven Hayes, Kelly Wilson, and Carmen Luciano. The ACT model is helping to create a paradigm shift in behavioral and cognitive therapy, behavioral medicine, and the behavioral health disciplines more generally, from a focus on form and content to one on context and function.

Chapters:

-Elisabeth: Getting Stuck

-The Social and Systems Context of Pain

-All this Suffering, Pain, and Disability: What is Wrong?

-Valuing and Pain

-The Therapeutic Relationship in ACT

-Values Assessment

-Identifying Components of an ACT Model through Functional Analysis

-ACT Interventions

-ACT for Therapists and Staff

-A Brief ACT Intervention for Clients with Longstanding Stress and Pain Symptoms

-Elisabeth with an ACT Alternative

-References

Product Details

• Paperback: 223 pages
• Publisher: Context Press; 1 edition (May 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878978527
• ISBN-13: 978-1878978523
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #452,224 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable, March 8, 2006

By	Aziz Özcetin (Uppsala, Sweden) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain has been of invaluable aid to me in my work with my first chronic pain patient. By reading this book my understanding of how many of the central ACT-metaphores are applied in practice has widened and gained context. We get to follow Elisabeth, a woman who is perceived by society to be broken, as she actively chooses to commit towards leading a more vital life.
Thanks to the author, Joanne Dahl, the all important therapeutic relationship - that is somewhat easier to describe than to grasp - gaines here another dimension and comes to life. What's very pervasive in the book, is the empathic view that the patient is a strong, capable and unique individual who has done everything in her powers to overcome her problems. Because I believe that human suffering is universal, I will revisit this book time and time again to assist me in my work with patients, regardless of the nature of the problem they might seek for.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great content but needs an editor!, May 18, 2006

By	Steven D. Hickman "stevepsyd" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a clinical psychologist who works almost exclusively with patients with chronic pain and illness, I am drawn to the approaches like ACT that incorporate mindfulness and acceptance in dealing with these conditions. This book is a very good glimpse into how ACT can be applied to people with chronic pain and I expect that I will use a lot of what I have read here to work with my patients. However, my major gripe with this book is the VERY poor quality of the text itself. It is literally riddled with typographical and grammatical errors. I suspect that the first author's first language is not English, but this is no excuse for the abysmal quality of the book. I have not made it through a single page without finding at least one error that should have been caught by SOMEONE in the process of putting the book together. These errors unfortunately take away from the credibility of these very well-qualified and talented authors. If you can overlook the poor editing, the book has some very valuable approaches and ideas.

2.0 out of 5 stars Editor please, March 3, 2009

By	Stephen McCandless (Little Rock, AR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

These reviewers are not exaggerating; there are multiple typos on nearly every page. The poor editing broke the flow of the book and I found myself frustrated during the read (perhaps this isn't very ACT minded of me). While reading, I thought we would never accept this of a graduate psychology student's academic or professional writing, yet they can sell it to me for $20. The ACT principles are communicated intelligently and clearly in this book.