Background & Aims
Background: Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) has growing research and practice-based evidence for its application in Pain Services as part of a multidisciplinary (MDT) approach. CFT can influence a service on multiple levels, from service-user programmes (Compassionate Mind Training (CMT) and Mindfulness-based Interventions), to multidisciplinary assessment and supervision, to the biopsychosocial formulation of primary pain conditions underpinning clinical practice.
AIMS: To explore the experiences of CFT in service-users through a Pain Service MDT pathway on completion of the CMT, following a MDT assessment. To understand the role of CFT within a multidisciplinary approach to pain, including how service-users develop a collaborative biopsychosocial understanding of their pain.
Methods
Design: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), based on Smith & Osborn (2003). The researcher facilitated individual face-to-face interviews of approximately 60-90 minutes.
Participants: 8 participants were recruited. Include age +18 with a primary concern relating to a persistent pain condition.
Analysis: Data was analysed by IPA and with its principle of a “double hermeneutic”, where the researcher aimed to make sense of how individuals with persistent pain make sense of their experiences and pain. This aims to offer insights into the individual’s subjective experience in relation to a phenomenon (compassion and pain) as defined by their ‘Being-in-the-world”
Results
Preliminary results are organised into master themes. Themes comprised the service-user’s previous experience of systems (healthcare, social network, employment, family) often experienced as shaming or invalidating, which contributed to a critical-self with pain and barriers to engaging with biopsychosocial skills, knowledge and understanding offerings. CFT was understood as contributing to a service-user’s biopsychosocial formulation through multiple levels over a time period in the service. Blocks and barriers were identified at intrapersonal, interpersonal and systemic levels.
Conclusions
Results suggest that CFT is an important approach to pain services to support with service-users’ understanding of a biopsychosocial formulation of their pain condition. CFT appears to be experienced by service-user at multiple levels in an MDT pain service pathway, influencing clinical interactions and provision. Future research could explore both the experience of clinicians in MDTs and whether CFT influences outcomes and engagement across the service in diverse and vulnerable populations.
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