No matter what shape your chronic pain takes, it can destroy your physical, spiritual, and emotional life. Chronic suffering drives patients from doctor to doctor, only to receive the same treatment plan: medication, physical therapy, or surgery. Doctors treat the symptoms because they cannot find underlying causes for the pain.

Mind-body medicine shows the interaction between emotions and illnesses. You may know that reactions to stress, like fear at a robbery, are helpful during a crisis. Did you know that repressed emotions like fear, anger, guilt, shame, and anxiety hide in our subconscious and cause unhealthy conditions? Brady coined the term, Autonomic Overload Syndrome, to describe pain conditions caused by high levels of stress and repressed, negative emotions.

What if you could cure your own pain? Brady outlines five pain-prone personalities; all can produce strong emotions, which can cause AOS pain. Do you try to stuff your anger and put others before you? You may have the People-Pleaser personality. Do you feel it’s admirable to conceal emotions? This may be characteristic of the Stoic personality. Knowing your personality type helps you relieve the physical and emotional pain of repressed emotions.

Dr. Brady, previously a chronic pain sufferer, guides readers through a mind-body-spirit approach. Readers delve through repressed emotions, spiritual health, pain talk, crutches, journaling, and prayer. I like Dr. Brady’s approach; he treats the whole patient and genuinely understands the complexities of chronic pain conditions. Pain Free for Life may be the last book you need for pain relief!