Psychological pain treatments: Who is most likely to benefit?

Join us for an exciting hybrid event at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London. We will be joined by guest speaker, Professor Mark P. Jensen from the University of Washingston, who will present the findings from his recent randomised controlled trial examining the effects and moderators of three psychological pain treatments. In-person attendees will then be invited to join an informal discussion with Professor Jensen.

Professor Mark P. Jensen, PhD, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Find out more.

This talk will present the findings from a recently completed randomized clinical trial examining the effects and moderators of three psychological pain treatments (cognitive therapy [CT], self-hypnosis training focusing on pain reduction [HYP-Pain], and self-hypnosis training focusing on changing thoughts about pain [hypnotic cognitive therapy; HYP-CT]), relative to a pain education control condition (ED).

Consistent with prior research, all treatment conditions were associated with medium-to-large effect size reductions in average pain intensity and pain interference. Moderator analyses identified significant (p < .05) moderation effects for one hypothesized moderator (more baseline alpha power = worse response to CT and better response to HYP-CT), and two exploratory moderators (more delta power = worse response to HYP-CT; more gamma power = better response to HYP-CT). Non-significant trends (p < .10) emerged for hypnotizability as moderating the effects of CT (less hypnotizability = more reductions in pain intensity and pain interference in response to CT) and both HYP-Pain and HYP-CT (more hypnotizability, more improvements in depression), and for theta moderating the effects of HYP (more theta = more improvement in depression).

The findings suggest that although different psychological pain treatments result in similar outcomes on average, different people may benefit more or less from different treatments. The findings support the possibility that treatment efficacy may be improved by better matching patients to the treatments they are most likely to benefit from (aka precision medicine).

Click to join on Microsoft Teams.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience / Online, Robin Murray A&B, London, United Kingdom