Clinical psychologists are highly skilled at undertaking a patient centred, holistic approach to assessing and understanding the array of factors that are known to contribute to an individual’s experience of pain.
Clinical Psychologists use the Biopsychosocial Framework to assess and develop a bespoke formulation of a client’s pain experience.
Implications for Expert Witnesses in cases where personal injury results in physical symptoms.
Clinical Psychologists examine factors that can help us understand a client’s ‘Lived Experience’ of injury.
The direct impact of a client’s injury on their daily functioning including:
- their capacity to return to their baseline activities of daily living
- the impact restrictions in, or loss of, function might have on sleep, interpersonal relationships, occupational function, home & family living roles, parenting/care giving roles, physical intimacy, social & recreational activities
- exploring any cognitive, emotional or physical symptoms in cases of head injury or concussion.
The indirect impact of injury on a client’s
- self-concept – e.g. a perceived shift from being independent and ‘strong’ to feeling reliant upon others and less capable, preoccupation that their injury poses a ‘burden’ on others’
- self-image – e.g. altered body perception due to weight gain, disability, scarring/disfigurement or altered movements.
This can lead to feelings of shame, self-consciousness or reduced confidence. - Emotional wellbeing arising from the cumulative effect of coping with an array of these direct and indirect psychological sequelae. (e.g. anxiety, negative alternations in mood).
The client’s pain experience including:
- their own perceptions of their injury
- their pain beliefs around what has happened to them
- their understanding of what recovery is expected
- their social or cultural beliefs about pain and illness
