Rethinking pain workshops
As part of our programme, we offer a range of workshops to support you in understanding and managing long-term pain. Anyone living with ongoing pain can join the workshops, you don’t need a referral. To get the most out of the programme, it’s important to attend the Understanding Pain workshop first.
Our Workshops
Workshops
Timetable
Booking Form
Understanding Pain
This workshop is our introduction to understanding more about pain and how the body responds to it, it looks at other ways to cope with day-to-day pain rather than relying solely on pain medications. It is also an opportunity to meet others, in a safe and welcoming environment who experience long term pain and be able to share your thoughts and experiences.
Sleep Therapy
Our sleep workshop will help give you an understanding of what normal sleep looks like, how pain affects sleep and the knock-on effects to health and mood, and it will also give you tips and ideas to help you get a better night’s sleep and it is a great opportunity to meet and share ideas with others.
Keeping Active
A relaxed, friendly workshop that looks at the benefits of moving more for people living with pain. We will look at a variety of opportunities for you to be more active, in ways that suit you. We will also discuss pacing and the boom & bust cycle, with the hope that you will leave feeling motivated to try something new.
Emotional Wellbeing Support
This workshop looks at ways to manage unhelpful emotions by understanding more about emotional reactions and how to process thoughts and feelings in healthy ways, we will discuss tools to help lessen the feeling of being overwhelmed. It is a safe space to listen to others and be listened to about your experiences with pain.
Setting Goals
We all form habits and behaviours in our lifestyle, sometimes these are helpful and sometimes there are habits we’d like to change, this workshop will help you to understand what habits and behaviours are and you’ll have the opportunity to discuss small changes you can make by setting goals and making an action plan.
More on Managing Pain
This workshop digs a little deeper into some of the topics covered in Understanding Pain and gives an opportunity to gain more understanding about pain self-management. It will be a more detailed look into whether or not medication is useful, and it will discuss flare ups.
Diet Therapy
The diet therapy workshop will look at tiny changes you can make to help with pain management, looking at anti-inflammatory foods, foods to help with sleep, tips with managing flare ups and tips for cooking and eating well when you are in pain. The focus is on things you can add into your diet and not about things you should take away.
Creative Therapies
Creative activities can often help you manage persistent pain by moving your thoughts away from the sensation of pain. By attending this workshop, you can try a few simple creative activities and discuss others that you may like to try. It’s informal and friendly and you do not have to consider yourself a creative person to attend, this session is for everyone, and all about finding a new hobby and meeting other people.
Your Story
We listen and share stories in our regular day-to-day lives on lots of topics, this workshop will allow you to use a range of audio and visual tools in an interactive way to help you to share your story. It will be an opportunity to meet others and hear their stories too.
Acceptance & Control
Accepting that long term pain is a part of your life is not easy, it may be hard to accept that you aren’t the person you used to be, but rather than struggling to avoid your pain you can learn to observe it, understand it and take back control. This workshop will explore thoughts and feelings, how to be in the present moment and look towards the future differently, switching your energy and focus to living well.
Beliefs, faith & Spirituality
This workshop explores the concept of good health and illness/pain from a beliefs perspective and discusses how beliefs relate to pain management. It will be a small, interactive group run by our health education GP specialist.
