Chronic pain often leads to worry, anxiety and behavioural changes such as social withdrawal and protective behaviour. These thoughts, feelings and behaviours can in turn intensify the pain and its perception. Cognitive behavioural therapy is therefore recommended for the treatment of chronic pain. This form of therapy addresses maintaining factors and is intended to help improve the way in which pain is dealt with. The focus is on teaching coping strategies and developing helpful behavioural patterns.

Strengthening your own ability to regenerate

Heart rate variability biofeedback is a more recent approach to treating physical and psychological complaints associated with chronic pain. "Heart rate variability is considered an indicator of the health and flexibility of the autonomic nervous system," explains Prof Dr Alexandra Martin from the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.

With biofeedback, you learn to control physical processes through visual feedback of your own heart rate and adjusting your breathing. One of the aims of this approach is to strengthen your own ability to regenerate. "The application has already been shown to be effective for physical illnesses, anxiety and depression. There is also initial evidence of the positive effect of heart rate variability biofeedback on one's own well-being in cases of chronic pain," says Martin.

Improving heart rate variability through biofeedback

The Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy working group at the University of Wuppertal is researching the interaction of physical and psychological processes in chronic pain and techniques for influencing heart rate variability. "Our own previous work shows that the control of heart rate variability is easy to learn and that treatment with biofeedback improves heart rate variability," says Sarah Wünsche, project leader of the study.

As behavioural therapy and heart rate variability biofeedback address different processes, the team from the Chair of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy is now investigating possible synergy effects from the combination of both approaches as part of short-term psychotherapy.