I sometimes ask clients to write a letter to themselves in the past. It’s a useful tool, as it allows people to take a moment to reflect on just how far they have come, as well as often giving their former selves words of kindness or encouragement. One client – I’ll call him Aaron – gave me permission to share excerpts of his letter in the hope it may help other people.

Aaron wrote a letter to himself at a time in the past when he was in “unimaginable” pain, on a particular trip for work. He found himself in a hotel room, curled up into a ball on the floor for three days. At this point he had not met me, but was beginning to realise that he would have to do something about confronting the causes of his pain.

“It's a difficult step to take because you feel like you could be fuelling the issue by giving it more attention, but you also can't go in living in this fear which is crippling you,” he later wrote.

Aaron worked with me for some months, and discovered he is a sensitive person. He spent a lot of time thinking about his beliefs, and the beliefs he had as a child. He had been through some very difficult experiences and taken on a huge weight of responsibility while very young, and this had major repercussions into his adult life.

When writing the letter, Aaron had not yet resolved his pain, but had made enormous progress towards doing so.

“It's difficult to know how far along the road we are - I suspect it's not even half way yet,” he wrote.

“But I am now far enough through that I can begin to believe that I can free myself from TMS/PPD and go on to live to my full potential for myself, and for those around me.”

When people begin the process with Resolving Chronic Pain, they fill out a questionnaire called the Roland Morris Pain questionnaire. This gauges the level of their pain, and can be used as a starting point from which to help recognise progress later on. In his first session Aaron scored 14 out of 24. When we repeated the process this week, his score was zero, or no pain at all.