CONNECT WITH A PAIN COACH
Seeking Freedom From Chronic Pain?
Pain Coaching bridges the gap between medical care and whole-person healing.
Start your journey towards overcoming chronic pain today.
We’re currently building a robust, searchable directory of certified coaches.
Our directory will include specialists in Pain Coaching, Health & Wellness Coaching, and related fields. Our goal is to make it easy for you to find the right coach - someone qualified, compassionate, and aligned with your needs - anywhere in the United States.
While our directory is being developed, we’d still love to help you connect with the right support. Please click the button below and fill out the short form. Our team will personally follow up with recommendations of coaches and organizations that may be a good fit for you.
Have Questions About Pain Coaching?
We have answers! Learn more about what Pain Coaching is and how it can help you overcome chronic pain.
Curious about the science? Scroll down to learn more about what research shows!
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Coaching is a non-judgmental partnership that focuses on strengths and solutions rather than weaknesses and barriers. Pain Coaching specifically supports people living with chronic pain by combining coaching skills with pain neuroscience education. It is built on trust, rapport, and confidentiality.
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A Pain Coach partners with clients to help them live more fully, despite pain. Rather than providing medical advice, a Pain Coach helps clients:
Understand how pain works in the brain and body
Explore new coping tools and lifestyle strategies
Build resilience, confidence, and hope
Take ownership of their health decisions
Reconnect with activities and purpose that matter to them
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Pain Coaches help clients:
Reduce fear and catastrophizing
Improve sleep, mood, and daily function
Strengthen supportive habits like movement and stress management
Find renewed purpose and quality of life.
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Pain Coaches work with individuals living with chronic pain, including conditions like arthritis, cancer-related pain, CRPS/RSD, fibromyalgia, joint pain (lower back, neck, etc), migraine, neuropathy, and more.
Coaches also support caregivers, family members, and people adjusting to life with long-term health challenges.
Nearly 25% of people in the U.S. are living with chronic pain.
Chronic pain is one of the most common and costly health challenges in America. Nearly 25% of U.S. adults live with chronic pain - more than those living with diabetes (14.7%), heart disease (5.5%), or cancer (10.3) [CDC 2021] These numbers are staggering, but behind them are real people whose daily lives are disrupted by sleepless nights, limited mobility, strained relationships, and the emotional weight of living with pain.
For decades, traditional approaches, such as medications, injections, surgeries, or physical therapy, have offered help. But too often, they don’t address the whole picture. Pain isn’t only physical. It affects the body, the mind, and the social world around us.
That’s why experts describe it as a biopsychosocial condition [Gatchel et al., 2014]. And this is exactly where pain coaching becomes a missing link.
Learnings from July 2020 research study conducted by PLOS (a nonprofit 502 (c)(3) corporation, #C3254500, based in California, USA). PLOS is a non-profit organization on a mission to drive open science forward with measurable, meaningful change in research publishing, policy, and practice. See study here.
A New Way Forward…
What The Research Shows
A landmark 2020 study published in PLOS ONE examined more than 400 individuals who took part in a year-long health and wellness coaching program for chronic pain, and the results were remarkable. Participants experienced a substantial reduction in pain intensity and an even greater improvement in how pain affected their daily lives. Gains extended beyond physical relief, with notable boosts in mobility, vitality, and emotional well-being, demonstrating how positive change in one area can influence others. Despite the program’s focus on management rather than cure, participants reported high levels of satisfaction, highlighting the profound impact of skilled coaching on quality of life [Rethorn et al., 2020].
The message is clear: when people are supported to set goals, strengthen self-care, and make meaningful changes aligned with their values, their pain experience shifts in measurable and life-changing ways. What this means in everyday terms: The same study found that, on average, people’s pain levels dropped by about a point and a half over the course of the year.
The program wasn’t designed to “cure” pain. Instead, it helped people set goals, learn self-care skills, and live more fully in alignment with their values. Yet pain itself went down. Why? Because as people regained movement, managed daily activities more confidently, felt more energy, and experienced fewer negative emotions, their pain intensity decreased. In other words, pain coaching doesn’t just treat symptoms - it helps people reclaim their lives in ways that actually reduce pain itself.
People felt more energy, greater mobility, and less emotional weight from their pain. At the end of the program, satisfaction was almost perfect, with a median rating of 50 out of 50.
Rethorn, Z. D., Pettitt, R. W., Dykstra, E., & Pettitt, C. D. (2020). Health and wellness coaching positively impacts individuals with chronic pain and pain-related interference. PLOS ONE, 15(7), e0236734. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236734 | Institute of Medicine. (2011). Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research. The National Academies Press. | Gatchel, R. J., McGeary, D. D., McGeary, C. A., & Lippe, B. (2014). Interdisciplinary chronic pain management: Past, present, and future. American Psychologist, 69(2), 119–130. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035514 | National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (NBHWC). (2019). What is Health and Wellness Coaching? Retrieved from http://www.nbhwc.org