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Kerima Furniss, LCSW

Kerima Furniss, LCSW

This site offers selected resources for effective tools to take charge of your chronic pain.

Videos, podcasts, interviews, book reviews and original blogs distill the best and newest in the field.

I hope to assist you on your journey to explore realistic and creative approaches from integrative medicine. I also offer my own observations and experience with chronic pain. My goal is to give you hope that change is possible.

As you may notice, I stopped writing regularly after my 50th blog in 2015. However, most of these articles are not outdated (except a couple), and still present the best thinking and information in the field. I am adding an occasional treasure, so do check back. Please forgive broken links, that is something that happens over time, and my focus has been on providing therapy to my local clients.

As you will quickly notice, I have a lot of interests, from science, psychology, and holistic health, to art and spirituality. I have done a ton of research for more than 25 years, even written my masters thesis on chronic pain. I have a “social worker brain” that loves resources and connecting people to them. Each post represents many hours spent looking at and choosing the most helpful information.

Frustrated?

You have probably tried many different routes to get rid of your pain, or manage it day to day. You probably have been told that you have to “live with your pain”.

When I look at magazines and websites, I get frustrated because they all offer similar and usually very general advice and treatments. There are too many 5 Ways to…, 10 Simple… Yes, some of these may work, but most of the advice is too generic and does not work well enough. And then there are the wonder cures…

Chronic pain is neither simple, nor fixable with a few steps. The reality is this: you are an individual with your unique pain issue. As nobody can tell you how much you hurt– or don’t hurt, or how you relate emotionally to your pain, so nobody can prescribe an approach that will work for just anybody.

There is hope and a lot that can be done– or more accurately, that you can do.

Hope for managing chronic pain 

Perhaps one of the most hopeful developments is the new research in neurobiology, and the often simple seeming teachings that psychologists have distilled from that scientific work. The basic idea is that the brain is changeable at any age, and that we can actively influence our brain and so change our daily experiences. In the years to come, I believe, this will turn out to be one of the most significant advances in both psychology and chronic disease treatment. If I am wrong, you have hopefully benefitted anyway. Read more here, and see my top book recommendations.

This site may be helpful for you if

  • you prefer not to go randomly browsing and researching on the internet
  • you wonder which sites and information to trust
  • you have too much pain to sit at the computer for long or
  • too little time to spend on the computer

I love to teach and support. As the facilitator for several local chronic pain support groups at a local medical office, I had the opportunity to figure out what worked for real-life people, and how to present information in a way that made sense to them. It was a fabulous experience. Sadly in today’s healthcare climate, this kind of group is not sustainable. With this website I hope to reach far more people than the few who could come to a group, and to give you more information than I could in the typical 6 or 8 weeks of group meetings.

About Living in Color

Having chronic pain does not have to prevent us from living a full and meaningful life, seeing beauty and experiencing many good moments every day, many good days a year. I feel so inspired by the people who are doing just that. I believe that good mental, physical and spiritual health means that we are able to move away from “black and white” thinking. The area between black and white– in my view– is not grey but contains all the colors of the rainbow. I invite you to explore with me the many ways to move freely in this colorful space between two opposites. Read more.

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