Gunilla Brattberg

I am a certified physician, and a specialist in anesthesiology and algology (pain and pain management) and associate professor in health and health care research. I received my PhD in 1989. The topic of my thesis was pain in the Swedish population. I have worked for more than 30 years with people who have chronic pain, spending a good portion of that time in clinical settings. But now I work primarily as a teacher, supervisor, researcher, colleague and fellow human being in the Pain Workshop Project. Here we use different educational products, what you could call "tools", to help people overcome their pain and become "pain masters". Thus, for the last 10 years I have worked more as a rehabilitation educator than as a doctor. I call what we do in the Pain Workshops, "post-preventive care". We pick up where medical treatment leaves off, building up people's self-confidence and self-reliance. Those who have not received help with pain relief learn to live a good life with the pain they have. In addition, I devote time to writing and publishing books and other educational material, and to teaching all over the country. As a researcher, I study how people with chronic pain learn to live with the symptoms -- there are many who actually are able to do this.     

THE PAIN WORKSHOP is run by the Pain Workshop Foundation in cooperation with Pain Workshop Gunilla Brattberg AB, a company that develops educational aids (pain tools) for psycho-social rehabilitation of people with chronic pain. People with chronic aches and pains are rehabilitated using the Pain Workshop concept, which includes educational methods. There are also networks of people who work according to the concept. The Pain Workshop experience is a supplement to medical care. "Värkstad" ("Pain Workshop") is a registered trademark. In cooperation with Pain Workshop Gunilla Brattberg AB, Pain Workshops are in the process of being established all around the country. As of autumn 2003, there were 28 Pain Workshops from Luleå in the north to Malmö in the south. The Pain Workshop is not responsible for examinations, medical treatment or other health care measures. More information on the Pain Workshop and Gunilla Brattberg can be found at www.varkstaden.se .

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