Acceptance and chronic pain : Literature review : a review of psychological approaches to chronic pain, and the possible role of acceptance. Empirical paper : are there relationships between acceptance and chronic pain?

Acceptance and Chronic Pain Thesis Abstract This thesis examines psychological approaches to the understanding of chronic pain. The first paper reviews traditional psychological models, as applied to the understanding of chronic pain. The paper then reviews a newly proposed model of chronic pain, which includes the concept of acceptance. The second paper replicates a study conducted by McCracken (1998), and examines the concept of acceptance of pain. McCracken conducted his study using participants who were awaiting treatment at a specialist pain clinic. The current study used participants who had exhausted all available treatment options and had been discharged from a specialist pain clinic. Correlational analysis revealed that greater acceptance of pain was associated with less pain severity, fewer depressive symptoms, less use of avoidance strategies, fewer fearful pain-related thoughts, less pain related anxiety, less physical disability, less psychosocial disability, and lower overall disability. Results are discussed both as stand alone, and in relation to those obtained by McCracken.