Interpretive psychotherapy with chronic pain patients.

Patients for whom medical and surgical management has failed to relieve chronic pain were treated in a multimodal programme which included interpretive psychotherapy. Dynamic conflicts were identified in all cases and utilized in the psychotherapy and programme design. Examined in the light of ego functioning, pain that was previously considered intractible, yielded to psychological treatment. Further research is planned to identify the parts played by the different modalities and to study outcome.