Coaching practices for Alan Gordon Pain Reprocessing

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Alan Gordon Pain Reprocessing, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• It’s not pain exactly
• I keep circling the same painful thing for hours and every loop makes it worse
• My scans keep coming back clean but the pain is absolutely real, and it moves around and flares when I’m stressed
• Whenever I go near a painful memory I lunge straight at the worst moment to "get it over with," and it floods me every time
• The second I feel the pain coming on I tense up and brace against it in dread, and I can feel that very fear cranking it louder

Practices that may help

1. Somatic Tracking, Made Practical
   Somatic tracking, developed by Alan Gordon as the central technique of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), involves observing bodily sensations — especially pain — with open, curious, non-fearful attention. The goal is to change the brain’s interpretation of safe signals from dangerous to neutral, which can reduce or eliminate neuroplastic pain. A 2021 randomized controlled trial (the BOULDER study) found PRT produced significant pain reduction vs placebo and usual care for chronic back pain, with 66% of PRT participants reporting being pain-free or nearly pain-free.
2. Apply somatic tracking to difficult emotions as well as pain
   The same curious, non-fearful attention that retrains pain responses can be applied to emotional sensations in the body.
   Somatic Tracking, Made Practical
3. ACCEPTS — structured distraction from crisis
   Use Activities, Contributing, Comparisons, Emotions, Pushing away, Thoughts, and Sensations to redirect attention during a crisis.
   Distress Tolerance Skills, Made Practical
4. Identify whether pain is likely neuroplastic
   Before practicing somatic tracking, determine whether the pain fits the profile of brain-generated rather than structural pain.
   Somatic Tracking, Made Practical
5. Approach the edge of the memory, not the center
   When working with a difficult memory, start at its least intense periphery — a moment before, a sensation at the boundary — rather than its core.
   Titration in Somatic Practice, Made Practical
6. Approach the pain sensation with curiosity, not bracing
   Turn toward the pain with the attitude of a curious scientist rather than a fearful sufferer.
   Somatic Tracking, Made Practical
7. Deploy attention away from pain and physical discomfort
   Shifting attention away from pain signals reduces the experienced intensity of pain — a clinically proven, non-pharmacological technique.
   Attentional Deployment, Made Practical
8. Task 2: Work through the pain of grief
   Allow and process the emotional and physical pain of loss rather than bypassing it.
   Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
9. Process cognitions after an exposure session
   After each imaginal exposure, discuss what came up — the stuck meanings and beliefs — not just the distress level.
   Prolonged Exposure Therapy: Principles, Practices, and the Evidence
10. Applying the body scan to chronic or acute pain
    Use the body scan to observe pain as sensation rather than threat, reducing the secondary suffering of pain-related fear.
    Body Scan Meditation, Made Practical

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