Pain Acceptance Training in Patients Experiencing Emotional Distress and Somatic Symptoms: Examination of Dialectical Thinking as a Mediating Factor

"The intervention start with a conversation and inquiry about the participant's pain while continuously validating his experience and creating a shared understanding of their struggles and difficulties due to the pain.~Next, the experimenter explain the relations between distress, pain and suffering, emphasizing that in many cases trying to control our pain, emotions and thoughts leads us to undesirable results through emotional avoidance, anger and escape. This explanation will be accompanied with commonly used metaphors to enhance participants' understanding. Afterwards, participants are familiarized with the strategy of emotional acceptance of pain. The strategy will be comprehensively explained and participants will practice it with the experimenter twice: Firstly, by practicing with the mental exercise of STOP (i.e. Stop, Take a step back, Observe, Procced Mindfully); Secondly by practicing the pain acceptance strategy while feeling moderate pain, and discuss their experience."