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As a clinical psychologist with a specialty in chronic pain management, I am often referred patients with both chronic pain and psychiatric issues. Many of these patients see a psychiatrist and a therapist, and are taking with both psychotropic and pain medications. The referral is often made because there is...

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

Patients with both chronic pain and psychiatric issues often see a psychiatrist and a therapist, and are taking both psychotropic and pain medications. This article describes how psychologists conceptualize the treatment of chronic pain and provide some tips for how you, as a busy prescriber, can leverage some successful techniques.

These days, opiates are primarily prescribed to treat pain. But there is a long history of using opiates to treat depression and other mental illness.

Many chronic pain patients are dealing with psychiatric problems. Pain patients have tremendously high rates of major depressive disorder which is undertreated and underdiagnosed. It's easy to assume that the depression is a reaction to living with chronic pain, but in fact it’s often the other way around. Dr. Michael Robert Clark describes evaluations and treatment methods clinicians can use to address pain management with their patients.

While there is some overlap with major depression, complicated grief has core symptoms of yearning and sorrow and great difficulty accepting the reality of death. It’s one of the more controversial proposed DSM disorders, with critics seeing it as medicalizing a normal human experience.

Link to the CME post-test for this issue.

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