Visual Imagery and chronic pain - new study at Bath (Jo Daniels supervisor)

Sly Saint

Sly Saint

Senior Member (Voting Rights)



Participant Information Sheet for Individual Interviews

Ethics code: 21-116



Who am I?

My name is Rita De Nicola and I am a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. I am completing this study to better understand the impact of intrusive visual imagery on individuals with chronic pain.



What is this study about?

I am looking for individuals to take part in an online interview. In this interview, I would like to talk to you about thoughts which may pop into your mind when you are in pain. I am specifically referring to thoughts which form as pictures in your mind, images which come to you spontaneously as you experience pain. For this study, I am interested in how experiencing these images can affect your day-to-day life when living with chronic pain.


What will I be asked to do?

Firstly, you will complete a short questionnaire asking simple questions about yourself (e.g. your age, information about your pain, thoughts about your health). Afterwards, I would like you to come along to an interview where we would talk about the types of images you have experienced when in pain, and how it affects the way you feel or behave afterwards. There are no right or wrong answers – I just want to hear about your experiences. The interview itself will last about 30-40 minutes and will take place at a time that suits you. The interview will take place online using Microsoft Teams, or by telephone if needed. The discussion will be recorded using an external audio recorder so that I can catch everything that you say and listen to it again later.
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https://bathpsychology.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ePbqSTMMaOX8hgO
 
For crying out loud! I have lost count of the number of psychology based research projects that I have been offered the chance to participate in ( via Chronic pain forums).
.
Surely someone needs to set up some actual science based, evidence based research that does not involve my 'attitude' to the idea of pain, how I see being in pain, and my 'negative thoughts' around being in pain.
Even a small child could understand that pain feels bad and doesn't make you happier!:banghead:
 
i have never had a visual image of my pain (FM). I assume the researcher thinks they will change such visual images and thus change the pain.

However, due to my incredulity viz a viz this article, I've started to yell at my pain.

I feel better already.
 
Joke's on them, I have full aphantasia (no mind's eye) and have not had an internal voice in years, I literally don't think of anything most of the time, even less so when in pain. It's more of a raw stream, I have no executive function at all, can't actively think about things.

In a way this is reverse ink blot thing. Of course such a study has zero meaningful value, I guess that's what academic freedom* is all about: the freedom to just waste academic funding on trivial nonsense.

* Somehow does not actually extend to studying discriminated diseases, academic freedom for me, not for thee
 
Do people in pain really have images pop into their heads?? I hate to think what they might be. Definitely not puppies and kittens.
I'm in a fair bit of pain everywhere all the time. Without painkillers to take the edge off a little bit, all I experience is all-encompassing pain in a "raw stream". Great description @rvallee .
 
hellytheelephant said:
For crying out loud! I have lost count of the number of psychology based research projects that I have been offered the chance to participate in ( via Chronic pain forums).
.
Surely someone needs to set up some actual science based, evidence based research that does not involve my 'attitude' to the idea of pain, how I see being in pain, and my 'negative thoughts' around being in pain.
Even a small child could understand that pain feels bad and doesn't make you happier!:banghead:
Click to expand...


Yeah. You can tell these are done by people who didn't pay attention in their psychology degree to disabuse their presumptions before either. I've had pain and I've had chronic itching (yes the afraid to go to sleep because without will you will scratch holes in your own skin level). Quite the opposite works. I have to concentrate on it and focus on actively 'holding it in a place' like an isolated bundle or a buzzing noise I'm trying to hear past (just an analogy as it is worse than that but it is the opposite of 'ignore it' and I'm trying to communicate that), it is hard to describe but it is like seeing it in a map and mentally with my eyes squinted zeroing right in on it and then just getting used to adding the other stuff you have to do on top of it. If I tried to do the opposite way around that would be a disaster, you'd notice it more because you weren't using a part of your brain to keep it from interfering. That was just to get on with my job. It took huge energy - because it would. Science always knew this (as did old science on it). So not great for our illness. It wasn't perfect and won't work with spasms. Long list of issues. And yes I was a phobe of taking tablets and stuck trying to keep a job and not being able to risk something that might make my brain more fuzzy and not wake up more.

But my point is that the b......cks of the idea of 'distraction' is just housewife nonsense - nothing worse than someone hitting your hand with a hammer then jabbering on at you demanding answers to inane questions on top of you trying to cope with the searing through you overwhelming pain. It divides your resources and energy and stamina and sounds worse than nonsense as it takes down your walls further on a short energy fuse.

In men for short term pain it is well known that swearing is one of the best things - so banning externalisation is rather suspect. Those who haven't ever experienced chronic pain (which I can only assume those who work in the area are in that boat) foolishly sometimes seem to assume you 'get used to it' ie it gets better over time, but the horror of it is that it gets worse and your resources to deal with it get used up further. So I find this sort of thing horrifying from a psychological harm potential of suggesting 'working harder at it'. HUmans do have limits - but that seems to be missing from certain paradigms.

All indeed (I agree) from the b....cks background of a kid falling over not hurting themselves and so not reacting and making them scared they might have. And then their foolish parents thinking they go away and decide not making something that doesn't hurt turn into the kid being upset from the parent works when the kid actually hurts themselves, then taking it to even more idiotic extremes. That is, I assume, where it has come from. Someone should make these people do science before they get funding and show their working as to why it isn't anti-logic and to be certain they are open to the opposite being proven with their design therefore.

If they are insisting on not giving their kid any belief when they hurt themselves properly they should also take a hard look at their degree again. ANd basic humanity. The psychological harm of invalidation and blanking someone who reasonably expects some flinch of 'yes I can see that would hurt' to deliberately not give that well.. let's look that one up to. Because it is also relevant here. And we should let these people pretend their research is independent from that science. They should know that from their degrees and be factoring it in. I struggle with how they are supposedly ticking both boxes with what they suggest so they are running risks even if their counterintuitive idea worked. It isn't even like they can claim that is cross-discipline as they must have had to do psychology in general first. I find it foxing they don't have to discuss potential psychological harms vs benefits.
 
I used to try self-hypnosis for pain, but had trouble going into trance. Once, though, I was having a neurofeedback session, and while talking to the therapist, I spontaneously went into trance. She could tell, probably since my eyes appeared unfocused and my breathing slowed way down, so she guided me through an exercise of visualizing what the pain looked like and then putting it into a hot air balloon and sending it away. For the rest of that day, all the pain was gone, but I could not replicate this experience afterward. The trance state is powerful, but can be hard to achieve.
 
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