Get Your Pain All Stitched Up

Betsan Corkhill was until three years ago a community physiotherapist. She now works as a freelance editor for a range of publications including Cross Stitcher magazine. This is what she told us.

Whilst working on Cross Stitcher I stumbled across an effective way that many people were using to deal with chronic pain, depression, long term conditions as well as stress and a host of other illnesses such as agoraphobia and anxiety.

It was the sheer volume of readers who were writing in saying that they were using cross stitching to cope with pain, even severe pain that first caught my interest, so I decided to investigate further. I looked into whether the intense concentration needed to follow a cross stitching chart was diverting the brain's attention away from interpreting pain - this appears a distinct possibility. I've spoken with experts in pain management and depression and they are really interested in the anecdotal evidence I've collected. And it appears that it goes much deeper than simply occupying people. It tackles the issues of chronic pain, depression and long term illness on several levels and we think it’s breaking the vicious cycle of rumination and hyper vigilance that it’s so easy to fall into. Stitchers report starting to look forward to tomorrow, escaping into their own world, and being too busy to worry about pain. Many of the quotes I’ve collected are from people suffering severe pain and the result appears to be the same.

The other pattern that became obvious from my investigations was that when people become ill, or have an acute episode the attention that surrounds them is enormous. Then there comes that crucial point when they are discharged or signed off work and just when they need the social support the most, it often stops completely. Often the patient is left with nothing but their thoughts, which can quickly become negative and destructive due to boredom, pain and isolation. I saw large numbers of people, who just existed, on my rounds as a community physio, and although their medical treatment was excellent, their quality of life was zero.

Experts in depression I've spoken with are very interested in many aspects of what I've shown them and believe that cross stitching could be teaching depressed people forgotten skills and emotions as well as having a number of other affects. Cardiff University Psychology department will be carrying out the first stage of a research programme which will look at whether cross stitching and knitting can break the cycles of rumination in those suffering depression and chronic pain. The research will be overseen by Dr Ulrich von Hecker, an expert in depression and carried out by Research Psychologist Jeni Brown. You can see some of the quotes I’ve collected on the temporary website of Stitchlinks at www.stitchlinks.com. Stitchlinks will launch in January 2006 and will be a friendship network for those who already use or would like to use stitching as a therapy. It will be paper and internet based with a forum enabling members to communicate easily. There are already large numbers of people who use knitting and cross stitching as effective methods of coping with pain – stitching has the advantage of being highly portable and many keep kits by their bedsides for when they are unable to sleep.

We'll also have a small online shop as people are telling me they find it hard to buy supplies. There will be a membership fee of £2.50 a month to cover my costs of printing and phone calls etc. (the Vat man takes his slice too!) but I will have a range of products and kits which will be available to members at significant discount which will more than make up for the cost of the membership. This friendship network will be a way for members to make friends and discuss problems with people who are going through similar experiences, so that, in effect, we will be forming a large self-help group. As I have already received interest from the UK, Europe, US and New Zealand, I see this network spanning the world, which will add more interest for members.