Student Focuses On Pain For Dissertation
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Chronic pain is something James Flowers
encounters every day. Not as someone who suffers from it,
but as someone who practices it.
The SHSU doctoral student, a licensed professional counselor
who has owned his own practice for 10 years, is also taking
chronic pain studies to new levels with his unprecedented
dissertation, which he has just begun.
“
Creating a Treatment Protocol for Hispanic Pain Management
Patients,” the topic of his dissertation, will be the
first comprehensive work on how the Hispanic population deals
with chronic pain, Flowers said.
“
There is no data or research literature on treating Hispanic
patients that suffer from chronic pain,” he said. “All
the treatment guidelines are geared toward Caucasians, and
there is a lot of literature on African Americans, but there’s
very little or no literature on treating Hispanics that suffer
from chronic pain.”
The psychological treatment of pain, his specialty, is indeed
quite different amongst different cultural and racial groups,
Flowers said.
“
We’re treating them (people) psychologically, behaviorally,
so culturally, they (Hispanics) respond to therapy differently,” he
said.
“
Hispanics draw very much on family, more than Caucasians,” Flowers
said. “Hispanics also draw a lot of their resources
from spiritual places. They like to pray and meditate, and
a lot of their strength comes from their religion and families.”
Flowers uses cognitive behavioral therapy to treat his patients,
a process that works hand-in-hand with physical therapy for
those who have undergone work-related injuries or who have
had multiple back surgeries.
“
They become almost completely disabled, and what I teach
people is that even though they are physically injured and
physically in pain, their lives don’t have to stop;
they can continue to function,” he said. “People
who suffer from chronic pain get very depressed, and they
have family problems, social problems, financial problems.
So I teach people how to cope with their chronic pain and
how to rebuild their lives.”
This type of therapy has become increasingly accepted by
all doctors within the medical field, Flowers said.
For his dissertation, he not only is using literature from
medical and scientific journals on the topic, but is using
his own patients as case studies.
Flowers, who received his master’s degree in counseling
from SHSU in 1995, currently owns 23 pain management offices
across the state. His staff includes 25 mental health professionals,
licensed professional counselors and psychologists, whom
he trains on various treatments before placing them in his
offices.
His dissertation will also include a national survey of Hispanic
people, including comparative interviews of people in Atlanta,
Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Diego and Phoenix, areas
that often draw migrant workers for various regional industries,
he said.
In addition to his doctoral work, Flowers has served as a
speaker for nine national and international clinical presentations,
including one this month in Toronto, Canada, where he discusses
different aspects of pain management.
He, fellow doctoral student Kate Walker and counseling program
director Judy De Trude have also applied for a $250,000 National
Institutes of Health grant that will be used to implement
a chronic pain program in the Center for Research and Counselor
Education this fall. The program will also be partially funded
by a grant from Wal-Mart.
—END—
SHSU Media Contact: Jennifer
Gauntt
Oct. 4, 2005
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