Explore Our
Pain Program
for Veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces
Our Pain Program is currently only available to Veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Complete the Intake Form to start your pain healing process.
What We Offer
Our Veteran Pain Program is geared towards serving veterans who have been struggling with pain and have had trouble obtaining the relief that they are seeking or getting to the bottom of what maintains their pain.
Pain does not have to be chronic.
Our approach is geared towards helping veterans better understand the emotion-physiology and mind-body connection in an experiential way that puts the control of the pain back in the hands of the veteran.
We offer a tiered and personalized treatment approach that assesses the veteran’s psychological functioning, psychodynamic processes, tolerance for internal emotional processing, and pain belief system.
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The intake assessment involves a pain focused assessment that explores the veteran’s pain related symptoms, triggers, and belief system. We also assess their psychodynamic emotional processing and current functioning. Based on this information we collaborate with the veteran to generate their treatment plan.
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The Pain Reprocessing Therapy group provides veterans with education on pain neuroscience and concrete exercises to address their pain. A veteran-specific group offers a supportive peer environment where participants can feel understood by others with shared service experiences, which can reduce isolation and make it easier to apply pain-management strategies with confidence.
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Individual therapy within our Pain Program is focused on addressing the veteran’s underlying psychodynamic processes of emotional triggers to physical pain. For veterans who are interested in engaging in this approach and for veterans who group therapy is not a good option, we will thoughtfully match the veteran with a clinician for individual therapy.
Click here to learn more about our individual therapy for pain.
Our Process
Plan with Purpose
The Intake Assessment provides us with the information to help us tailor a treatment plan that works for your individual psychological needs. We will meet you where you are on your pain recovery journey.
Collaboration
We facilitate collaboration between you, your VAC case manager, and your team of clinicians involved throughout the process to more effectively meet your needs within your circle of care.
Progress monitoring
We track your progress throughout your engagement within the Pain Program. Through a combination of completion of measures and check-in meetings with your clinicians, we will keep an eye on your response to treatment to help inform us of your needs.
Outcome focused
Our goal is to team up with you to work on addressing your somatic pain difficulties. We take a feedback-informed approach to help you move towards your target outcome.
Pain Reprocessing Therapy Group
A core option within the program is a Pain Reprocessing Therapy group, a structured psychological approach that helps retrain the brain’s interpretation of pain signals. PRT uses education, attention retraining, gentle somatic awareness, and emotional processing to reduce the pain-fear cycle and support recovery; in a recent pilot study with veterans, group-format telehealth PRT was found to be feasible, acceptable, and associated with meaningful pain reduction.
This group format offers veterans a supportive, shared environment where they can learn from both the therapist and one another while practicing new ways of responding to pain. The goal is not simply to cope with pain, but to help shift the nervous system out of persistent alarm and toward greater safety, flexibility, and resilience.
Group structure:
8 weeks long, 1 session per week, 2 hours per session, maximum of 8 participants in a group
If you’re interested in joining our group, start the intake process by completing our intake form
Research studies:
Our Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) group is grounded in a growing evidence base showing that chronic pain can sometimes be maintained by the brain’s learned threat response rather than ongoing tissue damage alone. In the original randomized trial of PRT for chronic back pain, many participants improved substantially, and more recent veteran-focused research suggests that group-delivered PRT is feasible, acceptable, and helps reduce pain and disability in veterans with chronic back and neck pain.
Ashar et al., 2021, randomized clinical trial of PRT for chronic back pain: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34383005/clinicaltrials
Holens et al., 2021, group-based chronic pain intervention using the Unlearn Your Pain method in military and veteran participants: https://utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/jmvfh-2021-0049utppublishing
Feasibility of Group Format Pain Reprocessing Therapy in Veterans with Chronic Neck/Back Pain: https://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(25)00249-4/fulltextjpain
Group-format pain reprocessing therapy in veterans with chronic back/neck pain: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42167627/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih
Ongoing comparative effectiveness trial of PRT versus CBT for veterans with chronic back/neck pain: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07137715
Individual Therapy for pain
Our individual therapy option for veterans offers a focused, depth-oriented approach to work with the emotional and relational factors that can drive both psychological distress and pain. Using a psychodynamic framework, sessions attend closely to the body, emotion, and defenses, helping veterans understand how past experiences, trauma, and patterns of coping may contribute to current symptoms, while building new ways of relating to themselves and others.
Psychodynamic approaches such as Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) have growing evidence for reducing chronic pain, trauma-related symptoms, depression, and interpersonal difficulties, and can be especially useful for complex, long-standing problems. In individual therapy, veterans receive tailored support at their own pace, with an emphasis on safety, emotional processing, and lasting change rather than brief symptom management.
ISTDP and psychodynamic therapy for chronic pain – key studies
Abbass et al. – Meta-analyses and reviews of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) for chronic pain and functional somatic disorders, showing large and durable improvements in pain, depression, and healthcare utilization [summary link: https://www.anesthesioljournal.com/articles/intensive-short-term-dynamic-psychotherapy-for-pain.html] .
Lilliengren et al., 2020 – Clinical- and cost-effectiveness of ISTDP for chronic pain in a tertiary psychotherapy service: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32093498/ .
Abbass et al., 2025 – Review of ISTDP for chronic pain and functional somatic disorders (includes table of RCTs and case series): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12090373/ .
“Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapies for Chronic Pain” – Systematic review of brief psychodynamic therapies in chronic pain populations: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/070674370805301014 .
“Psychotherapy for Medically Unexplained Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing ISTDP and CBT” – RCT comparing ISTDP to CBT for medically unexplained pain: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28279495/ .
“Effectiveness of Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy on Attachment Styles, Somatization, and Health Anxiety in Patients with Chronic Pain” – Quasi-experimental study of ISTDP in chronic pain: https://journals.kmanpub.com/index.php/jarac/article/view/1287 .
Comparing ISTDP and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for chronic pain – emotional-cognitive regulation outcomes: https://ieepj.hormozgan.ac.ir/article-1-748-en.pdf.doaj
Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Functional Somatic Disorders: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials: https://karger.com/pps/article-abstract/89/6/363/283235/Short-Term-Psychodynamic-Psychotherapy-for
Ronen-Setter et al., 2020 – “Harnessing Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)” (clinical and theoretical paper outlining AEDP techniques for trauma and complex emotional presentations): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7299455/.
Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) and ISTDP-derived models for chronic pain (including studies where EAET + ISTDP outperforms CBT): overview and summaries in Abbass et al. and related work [https://www.anesthesioljournal.com/articles/intensive-short-term-dynamic-psychotherapy-for-pain.html] .
Let’s work together
If you would like to work with us, complete the intake form. We'll review your message and get back to you within 48 hours.
We accept third party referral as well as self-referrals of interested Veterans.