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Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness pp 369–381Cite as

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Chronic Pain Management

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Pain is a common complaint in primary care, with chronic pain reported in 20% of visits to general practitioners (McCaffrey et al., 2003). Twenty percent of adults suffer from chronic pain, rising to half of those of the older age population (Cousins et al., 2004). Chronic pain, defined as “intermittent or continuous pain persisting longer than six months or beyond the regular healing time for a given injury” can impact on patients’ physical and emotional well-being (Siddall et al., 2004) and may be associated with disability disproportionate to degree of injury, as well as with depression and anxiety (Bair et al., 2003). Despite analgesics, surgeries and procedures, pain is poorly controlled by traditional Western medicine (Cousins et al., 2004, Furrow, 2001).

“Pain is not just a ‘body problem’, it is a whole-systems problem.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn

It is time the medical community acknowledged the other half of the system

Jackie Gardner-Nix

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. London University, UK

    Jacqueline Gardner-Nix

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  1. Jacqueline Gardner-Nix
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Coord. Unit for Mood & Anxiety Disorders Department of Psychiatry, Casa di Cura Villa Margherita, Arcugnano, Vicenza, Italy

    Fabrizio Didonna

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Gardner-Nix, J. (2009). Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Chronic Pain Management. In: Didonna, F. (eds) Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09593-6_20

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