A Novel Couple-Based Intervention for Chronic Pain and Relationship Distress: A Pilot Study.

Chronic pain contributes to psychological and relationship distress in individuals with pain as well as their partners. Prior pain interventions have addressed this important social context by engaging partners in treatment; however, partners have not been considered co-participants who can benefit directly from therapy, but rather incorporated as pain management coaches or guides. This manuscript assesses the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary outcomes of a novel intervention which targets both partners and focuses on improving well-being in couples in which one or both partners experiences chronic pain and relationship distress.

A Couple-Based Psychological Treatment for Chronic Pain and Relationship Distress.

Chronic pain impacts individuals with pain as well as their loved ones. Yet, there has been little attention to the social context in individual psychological treatment approaches to chronic pain management. With this need in mind, we developed a couple-based treatment, "Mindful Living and Relating," aimed at alleviating pain and suffering by promoting couples' psychological and relational flexibility skills.

Pain Anxiety and Its Association With Pain Congruence Trajectories During the Cold Pressor Task.

Unlabelled: Incongruence of pain severity ratings among people experiencing pain and their observers has been linked to psychological distress. Previous studies have measured pain rating congruence through static self-report, involving a single rating of pain; however, this method does not capture changes in ratings over time. The present study examined the extent to which partners were congruent on multiple ratings of a participants' pain severity during the cold pressor task.

Global and Situational Relationship Satisfaction Moderate the Effect of Threat on Pain in Couples.

Objective: The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that greater global and situational relationship satisfaction would reduce the negative impact of threatening information on acute pain.

Design: An experimental design was used to manipulate threat and elicit acute pain via a cold pressor task.

Setting: The study was completed in a research laboratory at a large urban university in the Midwestern USA.

A Perspective-Taking Manipulation Leads to Greater Empathy and Less Pain During the Cold Pressor Task.

Unlabelled: The objectives of this study were to demonstrate that empathy and validation could be increased in an observing partner who received a brief perspective-taking manipulation, resulting in less pain severity and greater pain tolerance in their partner, who experienced experimental pain. In addition, we examined the correlations between perceived empathy/validation and behavioral ratings of validation and invalidation. In 126 pain-free romantic couples, 1 partner was randomly assigned to complete the cold pressor task while the other observed.