And by way of post-script, if anyone wants to know my fundamental beef with CBT or “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain,” to use to term now in vogue,* the basic problem is that these guys promise, in the course of three weeks (or less) of insurance-paid extensive treatment, the possibility of a level of equanimity what I have only recently achieved with ten years of intensive meditative practice, beginning with an eight-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class in 2002.

And by way of an aside, I heartily recommend MBSR. If you go on their website at the University of Mass. Medical School (to which I just linked) there's a link to a directory that lists hundreds of trained teachers in active practice around the country, many of whom are licensed mental health professionals, which is great because it allows medical insurance to pick of some or all of the tab. In fact, as things stand for me right now, by far and away, the hardest part of the CRPS experience is the cognitive toll that's been exacted along the way. Something that I am now successfully addressing - at least in part with tDCS - but that is the subject of another thread altogether.

But back on point, how is it that these guys manage to compress years of otherwise deep training into a few weeks? It’s simple really. They just teach patients to be aversive to “self-pity”:

Cognitive restructuring is used to help patients identify and challenge overly negative pain-related thoughts and to replace these thoughts with more adaptive, coping thoughts.

Keefe, F. J. (1996), Cognitive behavioral therapy for managing pain, The Clinical Psychologist, 49(3), 4-5. Ever see The Manchurian Candidate? The reason I believe these programs will not succed as long-term treatments is that acceptance and equanimity must be based first on self-love, something that is quite impossible in a brainwashing scenario based on instilling an aversive response to “negative pain-related thoughts.”

Or put it another way, true acceptance begins at home, with one's self, and must be based first and foremost on loving the self. And not "just loving the self with all it's faults," but the faults themselves. We must, in effect, "love those thoughts to death" with all the compassion in our hearts. But does that sound like "help[ing] patients identify and challenge overly negative pain-related thoughts and to replace these thoughts with more adaptive, coping thoughts." Not on your life.

Starting off with forming an aversive response to "self-pity" will not and cannot lead to developing a truly equanimous relationship with yourself, the corner-stone of developing equanimity with everything else. Just ain't gunna happen.

* I assume because it's well recognized that "mistakes were made" early on and some re-branding was in order. Still "a rose by any other name . . ."