Health (Internal-External) Locus of Control in Patients With Soft Tissue Chronic Pain, and Treatment With Art Therapy

Graduation Date

Winter 2005

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Document Form

Print

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy

Degree Granting Institution

Notre Dame de Namur University

Program Name

Art Therapy

Dean

Lizbeth Martin, PhD

First Reader

Richard Carolan, EdD, ATR-BC

Second Reader

Rachel Cherry, MFT, ATR, CT

Abstract

Specialists working in the field of Chronic Pain Treatment, have taught the general medical community that the old approach of treating chronic pain as acute pain has created a host of problems for the chronic pain patient, including poor recovery rates, drug addiction, increased and persistent pain sensations, loss of work, family, and social interaction. Now in the early 2000’s many “integrative pain clinics have been created in the hope that a more all-inclusive approach to pain treatment would help with the treatment of chronic pain, and improve recovery rates.

The one area in which the integrative programs have not yet integrated is Art Therapy, and a look (specifically) at Locus of Control, as it relates to the management of chronic pain. It is the author’s belief that the use of art therapy and attention to Locus of Control can become the final piece in the integrative approach to healing the chronic pain patient. Many studies have explored the effects of an integrative approach to treating chronic pain patients but they have not explored the healing affects of art. This grant proposal it designed to work as a compliment to an integrative pain program, as supplemental treatment through art therapy and attention to the individual’s focus on the mind body connection through Internal Locus of Control (Rotter, 1954)

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