Existential therapy for treating chronic pain: A scoping review

Integrating an existential lens into chronic pain treatment enables a holistic and biopsychosocial approach to treating chronic pain. This scoping review aimed to identify the characteristics, themes, and results of existential therapy for treating chronic pain. We searched seven databases for empirical papers that described an existentially based intervention for a chronic pain sample. Conducted in May 2023, the search terms were related to chronic pain and truncated versions of existential and humanistic therapies. Six articles met the criteria and were included. Quantitative and qualitative studies were included, ranging from randomized controlled trials, non-randomized experiments, a case report, and a case study. Extracted data included study characteristics and common intervention themes (e.g., meaningfulness, self-identity, etc.) and outcome themes (e.g., pain-related, life satisfaction, etc.). All studies reported a reduction in pain symptoms or severity. Physical functioning was generally not influenced by existential therapy; however, it did improve with or in combination with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Meaningfulness was a common theme in all the interventions, and most articles reported increased meaningfulness in the outcomes. Spirituality seems to moderate the effectiveness of existential therapy. This offers an overview of the current state of knowledge of academically labeled existential therapies for chronic pain treatment. This further provides suggestions for advancing the study of this topic by highlighting both commonalities and inconsistencies in intervention findings.