#186 Accepting the many things we can't control

     "The spirit of the term acceptance can be misunderstood both generally and in relation to chronic pain. There is a risk that clinicians may oversimplify what is meant by acceptance, reducing it to whether a patient has come to terms with the possibility that pain may not go away. Rather than seeing acceptance as a one-off agreement or disagreement with a medical opinion, it can be more useful to think of it in terms of a patient’s willingness to continue to actively experience pain along with related thoughts and feelings. In this paper, acceptance is conceptualized as a moment-to-moment process, a continuing quality of action that allows individuals to move toward their goals or act on their values while contacting pain, difficult thoughts, feelings, and memories, and doing so without defense."
          Thompson M, McCracken LM. Acceptance and Related Processes in Adjustment to Chronic Pain. Curr Pain Headache Rep 2011; 15: 144–151.