Thanks for your questions, Makse.
By the way, I will be in Norway in the fall and will hopefully be doing some lectures or workshops there.
You’re right the that mean scores in the EAET fibromyalgia study were not that different and not even statistically different at 6 months than the CBT group. However, the proportion who rated their improvement was much greater. It is very difficult to show that one psychological intervention for pain is actually superior to another. There are virtually no studies that show that. Our fibromyalgia study was possibly the first to do that; and yes, the results do not “knock you over.” In practice, we combine assessment, predictive processing education, PRT and EAET on an individual basis; and we couldn’t do much of that in that group setting of the fibromyalgia study.
The Boulder back pain PRT study did show better results, but there was no active comparison group. That study (PRT versus CBT for back pain) is now being planned and will be conducted by Yoni Ashar in Denver, so we’ll see how that goes (in a few years). 🙂
The likelihood that someone gets better doesn’t really depend on where their pain is or what symptoms they have. It’s more dependent on if they can accept the model, do the exercises, let go of fear, deal with stress and trauma, etc.
Does that help?
Best, Howard