PAIN MANAGEMENT | CALIFORNIA
Chronic pain changes the brain. Therapy can change it back.
TrueMe® Counseling’s licensed pain management specialists use evidence-based psychological approaches to help you reduce pain’s grip on your life, restore function, and rebuild an identity that chronic pain has not been allowed to define. Book your free 20-minute consultation today.
WHAT IS PAIN MANAGEMENT?
Understanding pain management therapy — and what does psychology have to do with it?
Chronic pain is not simply a physical problem with a psychological side effect. Decades of neuroscience research have established that it is fundamentally a brain-generated experience — one shaped by attention, expectation, memory, emotion, and meaning, as much as by physical tissue signals. When pain persists beyond injury, it is because the nervous system itself has been altered — sensitized, rewired, and trained to generate pain signals that no longer correspond to physical damage.
This understanding is not a dismissal of reality. Chronic pain is real, disabling, and profoundly life-altering. It is an acknowledgment that the most effective treatments for it must work at the neurological level — and that evidence-based psychological approaches, particularly CBT, ACT, and pain neuroscience education, do precisely that. They change the brain’s relationship to pain in ways that medication alone cannot.
At TrueMe®, our therapists work alongside medical treatment — not instead of it. We help clients reduce pain catastrophizing, rebuild function and engagement with life, process the grief of chronic illness, and develop a sustainable relationship with a body that has become difficult to trust.
"Pain that persists is not always a signal that something is still broken. Often, it is a nervous system that learned to protect — and was never taught how to stop. That is not a character flaw. It is a neurological pattern. And neurological patterns can change."
"Pain that persists is not always a signal that something is still broken. Often, it is a nervous system that learned to protect — and was never taught how to stop. That is not a character flaw. It is a neurological pattern. And neurological patterns can change."
OUR EXPERT THERAPISTS TREAT THESE TYPES OF PAIN
Chronic pain takes many forms — all of them affect the whole person
Chronic pain is not a single condition. It spans a wide range of diagnoses, presentations, and life impacts. Here are the conditions and related challenges we treat at TrueMe®.
Chronic Back & Neck Pain
The most prevalent condition worldwide — frequently maintained by central sensitization, fear-avoidance patterns, and pain catastrophizing long after the original injury has healed.
Fibromyalgia
A central sensitization condition characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, and cognitive difficulties — with a significant psychological component that evidence-based therapy directly addresses.
Headache & Migraine Disorders
Chronic headache and migraine conditions with significant psychological triggers, stress reactivity, and avoidance patterns — all of which respond to behavioral and psychological intervention.
Neuropathic & Complex Regional Pain
Nerve pain, CRPS, and other neuropathic conditions in which the nervous system has become pathologically sensitized — requiring treatment that addresses the central nervous system, not only the peripheral site.
Arthritis & Musculoskeletal Pain
Chronic joint and musculoskeletal pain — including the depression, grief of physical limitation, and activity avoidance that dramatically worsen its functional impact and quality of life.
Post-Surgical & Injury-Related Chronic Pain
Persists beyond expected recovery from surgery or injury — often maintained by sensitization, trauma responses, and fear-avoidance behaviors rather than ongoing tissue damage.
SIGNS YOU MAY NEED THERAPY
Most Common Trauma Symptoms
Trauma symptoms are not signs of weakness — they are signs of a nervous system doing its job. But when that system stays activated long after the danger has passed, it begins to cost you the very life it was trying to protect. Tap a category to explore common signs.
- Hypervigilance — a constant, exhausting state of alertness for threat
- Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or sudden sensory re-experiencing
- Nightmares or severely disrupted sleep
- Intense physical or emotional reactions to trauma reminders
- Emotional numbing, dissociation, or feeling detached from your own life
- Startle responses that are dramatically out of proportion to the trigger
- Chronic physical tension — particularly in the jaw, chest, shoulders, and gut
- Feeling simultaneously flooded with emotion and completely shut down
- Persistent negative beliefs about self — “I am damaged,” “it was my fault”
- Distorted sense of the future — difficulty imagining a life beyond survival
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering, or staying present
- Shame that feels total and permanent — not about what happened, but about who you are
- A persistent sense that the world is fundamentally dangerous
- Cognitive avoidance — actively not thinking about the trauma and its impact
- Difficulty trusting your own perceptions or judgments
- A fractured sense of self — feeling like a different person before and after the trauma
- Difficulty trusting others — including those who have given no reason for distrust
- Withdrawal from relationships, activities, and life engagement
- Intimacy triggering fear, shutdown, or dissociation
- Difficulty feeling safe even in objectively safe environments
- Using alcohol, substances, overwork, or other numbing behaviors to manage symptoms
- Avoidance of places, people, or situations that carry any association with the trauma
- Recreating familiar dynamics — including unsafe ones — because they feel known
- Loss of interest in the future and in things that once brought meaning
You don't have to figure this out alone. Let's talk.
OUR CLINICAL APPROACH
How we treat you — and why it works
Most therapy fails because it’s generic. At TrueMe® Counseling, our licensed therapists use a structured, evidence-based framework built around your specific needs, history, and goals — not a one-size-fits-all program.Whether you’re across the street or across the state, we’re here — in person or virtually throughout California.
Understanding the Whole Experience of Pain
Chronic pain affects far more than your body. It can impact your mood, relationships, sleep, work, and overall quality of life. We begin by understanding your physical symptoms alongside the emotional, psychological, and lifestyle factors influencing your pain experience. Our goal isn't to suggest your pain is "all in your head"—it's to help you understand how the mind and body work together so you can find more effective ways to manage it.
Identifying the Patterns That Make Pain Worse
Pain often creates cycles that are difficult to escape. Stress, anxiety, fear of movement, poor sleep, frustration, and activity avoidance can all intensify pain over time. Together, we'll identify the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that may be contributing to this cycle so you can begin responding in ways that support both your physical and emotional well-being.
Developing Evidence-Based Pain Management Strategies
While therapy may not eliminate pain, it can significantly change how pain affects your life. Using evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain (CBT-CP), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), mindfulness-based interventions, and other clinically appropriate approaches, we help you reduce the emotional burden of pain, improve coping skills, manage stress, and increase your ability to engage in meaningful daily activities.
Helping You Regain Control of Your Life
When pain becomes chronic, it's easy for life to revolve around what you can no longer do. Therapy focuses on helping you reconnect with the people, activities, and goals that matter most. Together, we'll build practical strategies for pacing activities, managing setbacks, improving emotional resilience, and restoring a greater sense of independence and control.
A Personalized Plan That Fits Your Needs
Your therapist develops an individualized plan based on your medical history, emotional well-being, daily challenges, personal goals, and support system. As your needs change, your treatment evolves with you, ensuring therapy remains practical, responsive, and focused on helping you make meaningful progress.
Building Resilience for the Long Term
Our goal isn't simply to help you get through difficult days—it's to help you build a life that's no longer defined by pain. By the end of therapy, you'll have practical tools to manage stress, navigate flare-ups, improve emotional well-being, strengthen resilience, and continue pursuing a fulfilling life, even when pain is part of your journey.
YOUR THERAPY JOURNEY
What to expect in therapy
Starting therapy can feel intimidating — especially when you’re already carrying so much. Here’s exactly what the process looks like, step by step.
Free consultation call
Before anything else, you’ll have a brief, no-pressure call to share what you’re going through and ask any questions you have. There’s no commitment — just a conversation to make sure we’re the right fit for you.
Your first session
Your first session is a relaxed, open conversation — not a test. Your therapist will take time to understand your history, your current experience, and what you’re hoping to achieve. Many clients leave their first session already feeling a sense of relief just from being heard.
A personalized plan
Your therapist will work with you to create a plan tailored specifically to your needs — not a generic program, but a personalized roadmap designed around your unique history, goals, and what you’re going through right now.
Ongoing sessions & real tools
Each session builds on the last. Using CBT and other evidence-based methods, your therapist will help you identify the thought patterns and behaviors holding you back — and equip you with practical tools you can use in real life between sessions.
Tracking your progress
Healing isn’t always linear — and your therapist knows that. Progress is regularly reviewed and your plan is adjusted as needed to ensure you’re always moving in the adirection at the right pace for you.
Life beyond therapy
The goal of therapy isn’t just symptom relief — it’s lasting transformation. You’ll finish therapy with a deeper understanding of yourself, a toolkit you carry for life, and the confidence to face whatever comes next.
Meet Our Therapists
TrueMe® Counseling is a team of licensed MFTs and PhDs with decades of combined clinical experience.
Marina Edelman
Founder | Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist #51009
Cheryl Baldi
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist #39801
Dr. Rachel Chistyakov
Doctor of Psychology | Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist #150001
Sharalee Hall
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist #135374
Chris Calandra
Associate Marriage & Family Therapist #129479
Suzanne Perry
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist #163151
Hayley Willis
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist #163642
Jasmine Johnson
Associate Marriage & Family Therapist #137660
Kylee Garfield
Associate Marriage & Family Therapist #145651
Sean Palmer
Associate Marriage & Family Therapist #161917
FAQ - PAIN MANAGEMENT
Frequently Asked Questions About Pain Management
Honest answers from our licensed therapists — before you take the first step.
1. Can therapy really help with physical pain — or is this just about coping?
Therapy for chronic pain is not “just coping.” The evidence is unambiguous: psychological treatments — particularly CBT and ACT — produce measurable, documented reductions in pain intensity, pain disability, and pain-related suffering across a wide range of chronic pain conditions. They do this not by teaching people to think positively, but by directly targeting the neurological and psychological mechanisms that maintain and amplify chronic pain.
Pain is generated by the brain — not merely by the body. Central sensitization, pain catastrophizing, fear-avoidance, and hypervigilance to body sensations all amplify pain signals at the neurological level. Psychological treatment works by changing these processes. The result is not simply better tolerance — it is a genuine reduction in the experience itself, alongside a restoration of function and engagement with life that medication alone cannot produce.
2. What is pain catastrophizing — and how does it make chronic pain worse?
Pain catastrophizing is a pattern of thinking about pain that has been consistently shown to significantly amplify its intensity and its impact on daily life. It involves three interconnected processes: rumination (the mind fixating on pain and being unable to divert attention from it), magnification (appraising pain as worse than it is and expecting the worst), and helplessness (feeling unable to influence or manage the pain in any way).
Catastrophizing is not a personality flaw or a sign of weakness. It is an understandable psychological response to the experience of persistent, uncontrollable pain — and it is extremely common. It is also one of the most powerful predictors of pain-related disability, worse treatment outcomes, and the development of co-occurring depression and anxiety. Reducing pain catastrophizing is one of the primary targets of CBT for chronic pain — and one of the most reliable predictors of improvement in pain outcomes when successfully addressed.
3. How is TrueMe®'s pain management therapy different from what my doctor or pain clinic offers?
Medical pain management — medication, injections, physical therapy, and procedures — addresses the peripheral and structural dimensions of it. This is necessary and important. What it typically does not address is the central nervous system sensitization, the psychological amplification, and the profound life disruption that characterize chronic pain. That is precisely what we do.
TrueMe®’s management therapy is not a replacement for medical care — it is its most important complement. We work alongside your medical team to address the dimensions of it that physiology alone cannot reach: the fear-avoidance cycle, the identity loss, the grief, the depression and anxiety, the catastrophizing, and the behavioral patterns that maintain and amplify suffering. The combination of good medical management and specialist psychological treatment consistently produces outcomes that neither achieves alone.
4. Will I have to stop my pain medication to do therapy?
No. TrueMe®’s therapists work alongside your existing medical treatment — we do not require or encourage clients to alter their medication regimes as a condition of therapy. Any decisions about medication are between you and your prescribing physician.
What we do ask is that you bring an openness to understanding it differently — not as a purely physical problem awaiting a physical solution, but as a complex neurobiological experience that psychological treatment can meaningfully change. Therapy and medication work through different mechanisms — and for most people, the best outcomes come from combining them, not choosing between them. Our therapists collaborate regularly with medical providers and are experienced in working within integrated pain management contexts.
5. How long does pain management therapy take before I notice a difference?
The honest answer varies by person, condition, and duration of illness — but the research literature provides a consistent picture. Most clients in CBT and ACT-based programs report meaningful improvements in pain catastrophizing, pain-related anxiety, and daily functioning within 8 to 12 weeks of consistent treatment. Changes in subjective pain intensity typically follow improvements in function and psychological flexibility — often appearing somewhat later in treatment.
It is also important to set expectations realistically: the goal of pain management therapy is rarely the elimination of pain — it is the reduction of psychological amplification, the restoration of valued activity and function, and the rebuilding of a life that pain no longer controls. Many clients describe this shift — from organizing their entire life around it to living fully despite it — as more transformative than any reduction in pain intensity they had previously hoped for.
