Philip Appel, Ph.D., FASCH

Philip Appel, PhD, FASCH is the Director Emeritus of the Psychology Service of the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington DC. He stepped down in 2018 to just see patients after managing the Service for 31 years. He was a Behavioral Science officer in the US Army for 8 years before that. He received his Doctoral Degree from the United States International University (Now Alliant University) and did his clinical psychology internship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He has had a Behavioral Medicine practice for most of his career and specialized in pain management. He is past president of the American Society of clinical Hypnosis as well as a Fellow of same and has authored many book chapters and articles on the use of hypnosis in rehabilitation and pain management. He has taught workshops on mind-body interventions for over 25 years for the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He has integrated Buddhist and Taoist principles in his clinical practice along with the western approaches of Psychosynthesis, Gestalt therapy and Multi-modal therapy.

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approximately 50 million American adults, 20.4 % of the U.S. adult population has chronic pain. The opioid crisis has necessitated fining other ways of managing pain than through the use of medications alone. In this workshop we will explore the phenomenon of persistent pain and strategies for dealing with both the sensory and affective components of pain. A variety of interventions from different psychological models will be introduced. The course will be Experiential as well as Didactic to ensure that the attendees learn some of the strategies directly through experiencing rather than just talking about various techniques and strategies that will be shared

session: 9930