Chronic Pain Psychologist in Seattle and Online Across Washington

What a pain psychologist does

A pain psychologist works with the psychological and emotional side of persistent pain, such as the stress, fear, held-back emotion and long-standing patterns that can keep pain going, alongside the physicians who diagnose its causes and manage its medical treatment.

Pain is a real experience whether or not tests find tissue damage. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience." Its notes to that definition add that pain differs from the activity of pain-sensing nerves and that a person's report of pain should be respected. IASP's term for pain that arises from altered processing of pain signals, without clear evidence of tissue damage or nerve disease, is nociplastic pain. Pain like this is real, and it can be treated.

Chronic pain is common, and if you haven't tried psychological care for it yet, you're far from alone. In 2025, 20.7% of US adults regularly experienced chronic pain, according to the National Health Interview Survey. In the same survey's 2020 data, analyzed by Rikard and colleagues (2023), only 2.6% of US adults with chronic pain had used a talk therapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for their pain in the past three months.

Who I work with

I work with adults whose chronic pain or stress-related physical symptoms have gone on for months or years. You may have spent that time on appointments, scans and tests that came back normal while the symptoms continued. This work suits adults who want to understand how stress, emotion and relationships may be connected with what their bodies are doing, and who want psychological care alongside their medical care.

How care works

Care begins with a free discovery call, a short conversation about what brings you in and how I work, after which we decide together whether to book an initial consultation. That 60-minute consultation reviews your symptoms, the treatment you have had and the emotional and relational context in which the symptoms developed. We then build a treatment plan together. Ongoing sessions last 60 minutes, and we review your progress and the plan at regular points.

Sessions draw on three methods, led by Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), which helps you notice, feel and express emotions you may have learned to hold back, such as anger or grief. Its developers describe those avoided emotions as keeping the nervous system in a state of threat (Maroti and colleagues, 2025), and the therapy aims to ease that threat. I also use Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), which helps people reappraise pain sensations so that they provoke less fear, and I completed the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center's Foundational (Level I) training. The third method, attachment-oriented psychodynamic therapy informed by ISTDP (intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy), looks at longstanding patterns such as self-criticism, perfectionism and hiding vulnerability. My approach explains how I combine the three.

Working alongside physicians is familiar ground for me, since I was formerly Acting Assistant Professor in Family Medicine at the University of Washington, in primary care behavioral health. My page for physicians has more for referring clinicians.

What the research shows

Psychological therapy is part of guideline-based care for chronic pain, and the two newer methods I use have each outperformed comparison treatments in randomized trials. England's NICE guideline (2021) advises clinicians to consider acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) or CBT for chronic primary pain. In the United States, the CDC's 2022 guideline on prescribing opioids for pain asks clinicians to make full use of nonpharmacologic therapies for chronic pain. It adds that clinicians can refer people with significant anxiety, fear related to pain or other marked psychological distress to a mental health specialist.

In older veterans with chronic pain, EAET reduced pain more than CBT in a 2024 randomized trial in JAMA Network Open by Yarns and colleagues. The 126 veterans in the trial had lived with chronic pain for an average of 23 years. On a 0-to-10 scale, pain severity fell 1.59 points more with EAET after treatment, and EAET's advantage was still there six months later. By the trial's estimates, nearly two in three of the veterans who received EAET had their pain drop by at least 30% after treatment, compared with fewer than one in five of those who received CBT.

In adults with primary chronic back pain, PRT reduced pain far more than an open-label placebo injection or usual care in a 2022 randomized trial in JAMA Psychiatry by Ashar and colleagues. The 151 adults in that trial, in Boulder, Colorado, had lived with back pain for an average of 10 years. The therapy consisted of one evaluation and education session with a physician followed by eight individual sessions over four weeks. After treatment, 66% of the therapy group (33 of 50) were pain-free or nearly pain-free, compared with 20% with placebo and 10% with usual care.

Therapy for migraine and chronic headache describes how I work with headache, and what the research says about therapy for migraine.

My own research looks at how stress and emotion relate to pain. In a 2024 study I led in The Journal of Pain, which surveyed 673 Black, Latine and Asian American adults who reported chronic pain, more stressful life events went with more centralized pain symptoms and higher pain intensity. In our analysis, anger and perceived injustice (a sense of having been wronged) accounted for part of the first link and all of the second, and EAET's anger work addresses both.

Fees and format

Sessions are by secure video for adults anywhere in Washington, or in person on Fridays at my office at 5108 196th St SW, Suite 103, Lynnwood, WA 98036. The practice is private pay and does not bill insurance; the initial consultation is $325 for 60 minutes, ongoing sessions are $265 for 60 minutes, and Services and Fees lists every option.

Questions about seeing a pain psychologist

Can a psychologist help with chronic pain?

Yes. In randomized trials, psychological treatment has improved daily function for people with chronic pain. In one Washington trial by Cherkin and colleagues (2016), 342 adults with chronic low back pain at an integrated health system were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Two groups met for eight weekly two-hour sessions of mindfulness-based stress reduction or of CBT led by licensed psychologists, and the third continued usual care. At 26 weeks, 61% of the mindfulness group, 58% of the CBT group and 44% of the usual-care group had a clinically meaningful improvement in function.

What type of therapy is good for chronic pain?

Several psychological therapies have helped people with chronic pain in randomized trials, including CBT, ACT, mindfulness-based stress reduction, EAET and PRT, and guidelines most often recommend CBT, with England's NICE guideline naming ACT alongside it. The right choice depends on your symptoms, what you have already tried and the kind of work that suits you, and the discovery call is a good place to talk it through.

What is the new treatment for chronic pain?

EAET and PRT are two of the newer psychological treatments for chronic pain, and both have outperformed comparison treatments in randomized trials. EAET works with emotions a person has learned to hold back, and PRT helps people reappraise pain sensations so that they provoke less fear.

Can chronic pain lead to burnout?

Chronic pain and burnout often travel together. A 2017 review of 36 studies that followed workers over time found that job burnout predicted later musculoskeletal pain. In 2019 national survey data analyzed by De La Rosa and colleagues (2024), 23.9% of US adults with chronic pain had current anxiety or depression symptoms, compared with 4.9% of adults without chronic pain. Therapy for high achievers describes how I work with burnout alongside pain.

What happens to your brain when you have chronic pain?

Chronic pain involves changes across the nervous system. A 2025 review I co-wrote in Biology describes changes from the spinal cord to brain regions such as the amygdala, insula and prefrontal cortex, along with the body's stress-hormone and natural pain-control systems. One of these changes, central sensitization, means that pain-signaling neurons in the spinal cord and brain respond more strongly to ordinary or weak signals (IASP).

Book a free discovery call

A free discovery call is a short conversation about what you are living with and how I work, and from there we can decide together whether to book an initial consultation.

Book a free discovery call

References

Ashar, Y. K., Gordon, A., Schubiner, H., Uipi, C., Knight, K., Anderson, Z., Carlisle, J., Polisky, L., Geuter, S., Flood, T. F., Kragel, P. A., Dimidjian, S., Lumley, M. A., & Wager, T. D. (2022). Effect of pain reprocessing therapy vs placebo and usual care for patients with chronic back pain: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry, 79(1), 13–23. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.2669

Cherkin, D. C., Sherman, K. J., Balderson, B. H., Cook, A. J., Anderson, M. L., Hawkes, R. J., Hansen, K. E., & Turner, J. A. (2016). Effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction vs cognitive behavioral therapy or usual care on back pain and functional limitations in adults with chronic low back pain: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA, 315(12), 1240–1249. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2016.2323

De La Rosa, J. S., Brady, B. R., Ibrahim, M. M., Herder, K. E., Wallace, J. S., Padilla, A. R., & Vanderah, T. W. (2024). Co-occurrence of chronic pain and anxiety/depression symptoms in U.S. adults: Prevalence, functional impacts, and opportunities. Pain, 165(3), 666–673. https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003056

Dowell, D., Ragan, K. R., Jones, C. M., Baldwin, G. T., & Chou, R. (2022). CDC clinical practice guideline for prescribing opioids for pain: United States, 2022. MMWR Recommendations and Reports, 71(3), 1–95. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.rr7103a1

International Association for the Study of Pain. (n.d.). Terminology. Retrieved October 31, 2026, from https://www.iasp-pain.org/resources/terminology/

Jin, J., & Yarns, B. C. (2024). The impact of stressful life events on centralized pain and pain intensity: A combined model examining the mediating roles of anger and perceived injustice among racially minoritized adults with chronic pain. The Journal of Pain, 25(11), Article 104642. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2024.104642

Maroti, D., Frisch, S., & Lumley, M. A. (2025). To feel is to heal: Introduction to Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy. Der Schmerz, 39(4), 256–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00482-025-00878-6

National Center for Health Statistics. (2026). NHIS adult summary health statistics [Data set; indicator "Regularly experienced chronic pain"]. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://data.cdc.gov/d/25m4-6qqq

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2021). Chronic pain (primary and secondary) in over 16s: Assessment of all chronic pain and management of chronic primary pain (NICE guideline NG193). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng193

Rikard, S. M., Strahan, A. E., Schmit, K. M., & Guy, G. P., Jr. (2023). Prevalence of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic pain management therapies among adults with chronic pain: United States, 2020. Annals of Internal Medicine, 176(11), 1571–1575. https://doi.org/10.7326/M23-2004

Salvagioni, D. A. J., Melanda, F. N., Mesas, A. E., González, A. D., Gabani, F. L., & Andrade, S. M. de. (2017). Physical, psychological and occupational consequences of job burnout: A systematic review of prospective studies. PLoS ONE, 12(10), Article e0185781. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185781

Yarns, B. C., Jackson, N. J., Alas, A., Melrose, R. J., Lumley, M. A., & Sultzer, D. L. (2024). Emotional awareness and expression therapy vs cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic pain in older veterans: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 7(6), Article e2415842. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.15842

Young, G., Thielen, H., Samuelson, K., & Jin, J. (2025). Neurobiology of chronic pain, posttraumatic stress disorder, and mild traumatic brain injury. Biology, 14(6), Article 662. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology14060662