Howard Schubiner, an internist and clinical professor at Michigan State University, has spent more than two decades researching chronic pain and related mind-body conditions. In Unlearn Your Pain, the most widely recommended book by the experts we spoke to, he focuses on neuroplastic conditions—including some cases of back pain, migraine, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and long COVID—which he argues can be generated and sustained by an overactive nervous system. His approach involves teaching patients to reinterpret pain signals using pain reprocessing therapy (PRT) while managing the emotions that may be keeping them stuck in high alert.
Rebecca Kennedy, MD, a primary care doctor based in Portland, Oregon, says she searched for years to find a solution for her patients living with chronic pain. “It was not until I found the work of Dr. Schubiner that I was effectively able to help people,” she said. She used the strategies in the book to help her patients “turn off pain signals entirely, without medications, supplements, or procedures.”