You can't sit for long periods of time without experiencing pain. You stand, pace, shift position. Stress and the tension in your back make sleeping and performing physical therapy exercises even more difficult. It's exhausting. Frustrating.

After years in one job, you're faced with having to make a career change. Or maybe you can't go back to work at all. All others see is that you're not working. Not contributing. You just want to be your old self again.

As a chronic pain sufferer, you are often faced with far more than the physical pain in your body. Having to make major life changes or adjust to a new role in your family and work life is both challenging and intimidating. Stress and depression can increase pain and affect relationships. Fortunately, there are people who can help you to overcome these hurdles.

Counseling with a Spine Center social worker

Factors such as depression, anxiety, anger and frustration can negatively impact your medical recovery. Maybe stress is increasing the pain. Or persistent pain and the loss of your 'old self' has lead to depression. The cycle of physical and emotional distress can lead to physiological changes that further inhibit your recovery.

As part of combined treatment with physical or occupational therapy, short-term counseling with the social worker at the Spine Center can help you to manage chronic pain and overcome other obstacles in your life.

What if I'm overreacting or making the pain worse by feeling sorry for myself? Maybe counseling is for people worse off than me.

You are not causing the pain to increase because you just need to 'get over it and move on.' The thought of having to start over again, having to figure out and prepare for a new role - be it in your family or work life - might seem impossible. When good health and the constants that have defined your life are taken from you, feeling incapable of coping with these losses is a reasonable, normal response.

The challenges you're facing are difficult. They are challenges, however, that can be overcome.

What can the social worker do to help me?

Counseling with the social worker can comprise any number of methods, depending on your particular situation. The first consultation will be to discuss the nature of your chronic pain or functional impairment, the treatment you are receiving, how it is impacting your life and medical recovery, and what your concerns and goals are.

After talking with you, the counselor will devise a comprehensive plan of treatment appropriate for you. Depending on your concerns and goals and what you are most comfortable with, treatment could include any of the following:

  • short-term, goal-oriented individual or group counseling to assist you and your family with life transitions associated with illness, injury, and functional impairment
  • understanding the physiological cycle of pain and learning to self-manage pain with relaxation exercises and other techniques
  • cognitive/behavioral approaches to change the way you respond to pain and functional impairment
  • referral to community services such as diagnostic testing, nutritional counseling, and smoking cessation

While your physician, physician's assistant, and physical and occupational therapists will know about the general goals of your work with the social worker, counseling with the social worker is confidential. The social worker will discuss your counseling work with the physician and therapists only if it is crucial to your medical recovery.

What is the first step to meeting with the social worker?

If you think that you could benefit from meeting with the Spine Center social worker please talk to the physician or therapists on your treatment team. Or you may contact the social worker directly by calling 518.525.1364. You may be required to get a referral from your primary care physician before beginning treatment.

Nobody will be denied access to counseling for financial reasons. A sliding fee scale will be available for patients who do not have behavioral health benefits.