The Power of Reassurance

Recently I heard an interesting story from a PT (let’s call him Tom). In the clinic Tom worked in there was one PT (let’s call her Amy)  who always got the best outcomes. Tom was really curious about this since they had equal skill sets and training. Tom asked to sit in on one of Amy’s sessions. Tom observed that Amy constantly reassured her patients with statements like: “You go this!” “You are improving every day!” “The body is resilient and knows how to heal” Amy also did a through intake which included addressing the the psycho-social factors such as social support, loneliness, marriage status, social disruption, bereavement, work environment, social status, and social integration.

That was a light bulb moment for Tom and since then he's incorporated his "lessons from Amy" and seen his outcomes improve.

 Pain (both chronic and acute) often causes the amygdala to go on high alert, arousing sympathetic arousal.
Pain can be disabling, upsetting, and scary!
“The amygdala plays an important role in emotional-affective aspects of behaviors, stress integration, and related disorders such as anxiety, depression, and addiction, as well as pain modulation.”(Neugebauer et al., 2020)

At the bottom of most of my emails I quote one of my favorite authors; Rachel Remen, MD (her books are glorious!): "We do not bless with our expertise, we bless with our bare hands." 

We can have upteen certifications, the most advanced skill sets and many years in this profession but the power of healing is so much more than our skills (as Tom found out).  It starts with heart.

Let's all: 

• Create emotional safety for the client.
• Reassure them they can heal/recover.
• The body is a healing machine!!

A fascinating research paper: Fear in the context of pain: Lessons learned from 100 years of fear conditioning research