Chronic Pain Group Meetings
UW Health health psychologists offer the following groups for people with chronic pain:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Living Well Beyond Your Pain
- Headache Management and Coping Group
- Lifestyle Skills for Chronic Pain
- Mind-Body Medicine Group
- Pain Management and Coping Group
- Positive Emotions: Creating Resiliency with a Chronic Pain Problem
- Skills for a Happy Heart
Learn about our group leaders:
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Living Well Beyond Your Pain
In a safe, supportive and experiential environment, group members will learn how to:
- Clarify what you value and how you want to live your life
- Stop your thoughts around your pain condition from holding you back
- Develop skills to keep pain in perspective
- Commit to meaningful action that leads to richer, more fulfilling experiences
- Foster acceptance to gain a sense of peace
Details:
- Dates: Please contact Michele Johnson at (608) 890-6464 to be added to the mailing list for the next session.
- Location: TBA
- Group Leaders: Shilagh Mirgain, PhD, and Janice Singles, PsyD.
- Cost: Check to see if your insurance carrier covers "Health and Behavior CPT codes 96164 and 96165" for this pain management group.
- Registration: To sign up for the group, please contact Michele Johnson at (608) 890-6464.
Headache Management and Coping Group
In a safe and supportive environment, group members can learn to develop strategies and skills that are beneficial for coping with the challenges of headache pain.
Details:
- Dates: Thursdays, 3-4:30pm; Oct. 15, 22, 29 and Nov. 5.
- Location: Online.
- Group Leaders: Shilagh Mirgain, PhD, and Andrew McClintock, PhD.
- Cost: Covered by many health insurance programs.
- More information or to register: Contact Michele Johnson at (608) 890-6464.
Lifestyle Skills for Chronic Pain
This five-part series presents skills and interventions helpful in managing a chronic pain problem:
- Understanding the Mechanisms of Chronic Pain: This session will provide health education on distinguishing between the types of pain and how it operates in your system.
- Setting Effective Goals for Pain Rehabilitation: This session will coach you in creating effective goals, so that you can measure your progress in your pain rehabilitation. Well-defined goals can help you effectively communicate with your physician about your treatment plan.
- Fundamentals of Activity Pacing: This session will give you the tools to change habits that get in the way of keeping up with your day-to-day activities. You will learn a strategy on how to get tasks done more effectively.
- Radical Acceptance - A Method of Redesigning Your Life: This session will provide you with a pathway to better accept living with a chronic pain condition.
- Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy: This session will introduce a mindfulness approach to managing your chronic pain. Learning how to be present as a method of identifying tension or problematic thoughts associated with a pain problem has been proven to improve coping with chronic pain.
Details:
- Morning Group Sessions: Wednesdays, 10am-noon.
- Afternoon Group Sessions: Wednesdays, 3-5pm.
- Sessions can be taken in any order.
- Location: Online.
- Group Leaders: Shilagh Mirgain, PhD, and Andrew McClintock, PhD.
- Cost: Check to see if your insurance carrier covers "Health and Behavior CPT codes 96164 and 96165" for this pain management group.
- Registration: To register for the group, please contact Michele Johnson at (608) 890-6464.
Mind-Body Medicine Group
In a safe and supportive environment, this eight-week group teaches skills to manage stress and physical symptoms associated with illness, pain or stress-related medical conditions. By understanding the mind-body connection, group members will learn how to gain greater control of their health and to improve their well-being.
Goals for the group include:
- Understand the stress-symptom cycle
- Learn and incorporate a variety of relaxation techniques into daily life
- Strengthen motivation to implement healthy lifestyle practices
- Identify and change unhelpful thinking patterns
- Improve communication in relationships
- Foster social support networks
This group would benefit anyone who:
- Is interested in improving their health and reducing stress
- Has medical problems triggered by or complicated by stress
- Is interested in developing mind-body skills to complement their medical treatment
Details
- Dates: Tuesdays, 12:30-1:30pm; Sept. 29; Oct. 6, 13, 20 and 27; Nov. 3, 10 and 17.
- Location: Online.
- Group Leaders: Shilagh Mirgain, PhD, and Janice Singles, PsyD.
- Cost: Check to see if your insurance carrier covers "Health and Behavior CPT codes 96164 and 96165" for this pain management group.
- Registration: To register for the group, please contact Michele Johnson at (608) 890-6464.
Group participants talk about how the group helped them development pain management skills. |
Pain Management and Coping Group
In a safe and supportive environment, group members can learn to develop strategies and skills that are beneficial for coping with the challenges of chronic pain. A variety of topics will be addressed including:
- Relaxation skills
- Theories of pain
- Stress management
- Dealing with difficult emotions
- Making healthy adjustments to health changes
- Developing adaptive thinking patterns
- Addressing relationship changes
- Improving quality of life
Details:
- Dates: Please contact Michele Johnson at (608) 890-6464 to be added to the mailing list for next session.
- Location: TBA
- Group Leaders: Shilagh Mirgain, PhD, and Janice Singles, PsyD
- Cost: Covered by many health insurance programs.
- More information or to register: Contact Michele Johnson at (608) 890-6464.