Somatosensory evoked potentials and noxious stimulation in patients with intractable, noncancer pain syndromes.

Investigations of the evoked potentials (EPs) to noxious laser stimulation have indicated consistent strong linear relationships between subjective response (R), stimulus intensity (S), and EP amplitude (A). Thirty patients with chronic intractable benign pain syndromes (CIBPS) were tested to determine whether their patterns differed from previous studies with normal volunteers. Nearly half of the CIBPS patients were found to be relatively insensitive to acute pain stimuli. A large number were also found to show negative relationships between S and A. These differences from control subjects were considered of potential importance in their implications concerning the nature of chronic pain and its differences from the acute pain process.

Chronic, intractable, benign pain: a syndrome and its treatment with intensive short-term group psychotherapy.

There is sufficient reason to classify some ongoing pain problems as syndromes. Patients who suffer with chronic, intractable, benign pain syndromes (CIBPS) have truly functional biopsychosocial disorders. There is no longer any current pathophysiology operative, and the pain syndrome persists with its psychosocially perpetuating and disrupting features. An intense group psychotherapy approach in the therapeutic milieu of a medical-surgical setting fosters and evokes affect expression and understanding. This encourages the formation of cognitive patterns that are therapeutically useful in that they extend coping abilities and, hence, diminish the pain and suffering experience and life problems attendant to it.