Chronic pain worksheets that treat pain as real — and re-trainable.
Ten worksheets built on modern pain science: Pain Reprocessing Therapy, ACT for chronic pain, pacing, flare planning, illness identity, and medical trauma. Free, printable, clinician-designed.
Pain Neuroscience Education
Real, and re-trainable
Modern pain science explained plainly: central sensitization, fear-pain loop, and what changes treatment.
Somatic Tracking Worksheet (PRT)
Curiosity, not fixing
The core PRT exercise — bring curious attention to the sensation, add safety, notice shift.
ACT for Chronic Pain Worksheet
Clean pain vs suffering
Separate the sensation from stacked suffering; take values-aligned action with pain present.
Pacing Plan Worksheet
Baseline done on good days too
Establish baseline, hold it in bad and good weeks, add 10% per flare-free week.
Pain Flare Plan
Ride, don't spiral
Recognize flare signs, follow a pre-agreed protocol, use a safety-cueing sentence.
Illness Identity Worksheet
You are more than the illness
Re-diversify roles: what shrank, what can still be touched at any dose, one tiny non-sick act this week.
Medical Trauma Processing Worksheet
This is trauma, not overreaction
Structured first pass at medical-system trauma with symptom checklist and next-steps plan.
Coping with New Chronic Diagnosis
Grief + team + right-sized info
Hold the grief, prepare three questions, name the team, right-size the research intake.
Chronic Pain Communication Worksheet
A shared code with loved ones
Green/yellow/red pain code with what you need — and don't — at each level.
Daily Pain-Mood-Sleep Log
Two weeks reveals what memory misses
Pain + mood + sleep + movement log with pattern analysis prompts.
Pain Pacing Quota Plan
Stop by the clock, not by the pain
Design time-based quotas and baked-in rest so good days don't cost three flat days.
Pain Flare Response Plan
A shorter bad week, not a failure
Warning signs, what to reduce, small comforts, who to tell, and the slow return-to-baseline.
Pain: Values vs Avoidance
Hold pain and life in the same frame
Name what pain has shrunk, sort what still matters, and pick one modified move toward it this week.
Graded Exposure for Pain
The movement isn't the danger
A five-level ladder for a feared movement, with prediction, action, and what actually happened.
Weekly Pain Diary
Pattern beats snapshot
Daily columns for pain, sleep, activity, stress, meds, and notable events — with room for the pattern you spot at week's end.
Frequently asked questions
Does 'pain is in the brain' mean the pain isn't real?+
No. Modern pain science makes clear that chronic pain is real neurobiology — central sensitization, altered nervous system signaling. These worksheets take the pain as real AND treatable, which acute-injury models often fail to.
Also built for this work
Try the Nervous System State Tracker interactive tool
Send it to your client between sessions and see what comes back before your next appointment.
Built for Chronic pain therapists
See the worksheets, trackers, and between-session flows designed for your practice.