Toward a Fully Functional, Flexible, and Defused Approach to Pain in Young People

WHAT IS ONE to do with pain? If one were to trace the developments of pain management methods over the past 40 years, one would see that psychologists have answered this question in a range of increasingly sophisticated ways. This history of clinical psychology’s approach to pain resembles a line drawn through operant-based treatments, through cognitive behavioral therapy, and following on through a small number of contemporary approaches, approaches that are particularly functional and contextual, as exemplified by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and the case presented by Wicksell, Dahl, Magnusson, and Olsson (2005). Particularly in the application of ACT with young people, pain management is still in its early stages of development. Nonetheless, the question of what to do with pain, or how to manage discouraging thoughts and feelings more generally, is meeting new and exciting models of human suffering and yielding new methods for responding to chronic pain....