CAN YOUR BRAIN TAME CHRONIC PAIN?

I’VE KNOWN Tara DiRocco for less than five minutes, but already I’m telling her all the intimate details: a dull, persistent ache in my right arm sets in within moments of sitting down at my desk to work.

This pain, which I’ve had for years, brings emotional stress, too. I’m a writer; if I can’t type, I can’t work. I had assumed my pain was due to a repetitive-use injury from long years of long days at my computer. But a new way of treating chronic pain, called pain reprocessing therapy (PRT), suggests that the story I tell myself might not be true. What’s more, DiRocco says, believing that I’m broken may be what’s broken.

DiRocco is a physical therapist by profession, but she’s also my coach at