Pain Reprocessing Therapy

What Is Pain Reprocessing Therapy?

Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) is a treatment approach developed by Alan Gordon at the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles. It's built on a simple but powerful insight from modern neuroscience: most chronic pain is generated by learned neural pathways in the brain, not by ongoing tissue damage.

When pain persists long after an injury has healed, the brain has essentially learned to keep producing pain signals. PRT works by helping you reprocess these signals, teaching your brain that they represent a false alarm rather than real danger.

The Research Behind PRT

A landmark 2021 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that PRT resulted in substantial pain reduction for participants with chronic back pain. Two-thirds of participants were pain-free or nearly pain-free after treatment, and the results held at one-year follow-up. Brain imaging showed measurable changes in how participants' brains processed pain signals.

This isn't about ignoring pain or pushing through it. It's about the brain genuinely changing how it processes sensory information.

How PRT Works

In PRT sessions, we work together to:

• Understand the neuroscience: Learn how your brain creates and maintains pain, and why this knowledge itself is therapeutic.
• Reduce fear and threat: Chronic pain is maintained by a cycle of fear and hypervigilance. We gently interrupt that cycle.
• Reprocess pain sensations: Through guided attention, you learn to experience pain signals with safety and curiosity rather than fear.
• Address emotional contributors: Unprocessed emotions often fuel the brain's danger signals. We work with these underlying patterns.

Who Is PRT For?

PRT is effective for a variety of conditions:

• Chronic back pain
• Migraines and tension headaches
• Fibromyalgia
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Repetitive strain injuries (RSI)
• Persistent pain after surgery or injury
• Pain that moves around the body or doesn't match structural findings

If you've been told your imaging looks normal, if your pain moves or fluctuates with stress, or if you suspect there's more going on than just a physical problem, PRT may be the right approach.

If your particular condition is not listed here, there is still a good chance that PRT can help. Reach out for a free consultation to discuss your symptoms with me and we can determine if PRT would be a fit.

My Personal Connection to PRT

I didn't just study PRT. I used it to recover from my own chronic pain. After years of searching for answers, understanding the neuroscience of pain and working through PRT was what finally shifted my experience. That personal recovery informs everything I bring to this work.

Read my full story →