It is common for people with chronic pain to feel their injury was unfair.

This belief can detrimentally impact physical recovery, and increase the risk of serious depression.

To expedite healing, targeted psychotherapy regarding perceived injustice is warranted.

I was in an auto accident over six months ago, when an Uber driver ran a red light at an intersection and totaled both our cars. I sustained a serious neck injury. I didn’t think it was such a big deal at first, but as time passed, the pain intensified to the point where I could barely move. And so began the round robin of doctors, physical therapists, medical imaging, injections, and drugs that seems to take up most of my life now.

If you asked me, however, I would tell you that this neck injury isn’t the worst pain I’ve ever known. That dubious honor would have to be reserved for major depression—surely the closest a human being can ever get to hell while still alive. I thanked God that my mood seemed to be stable despite the injury to my body. I was irritable, sure, and maybe more than a little scared, but I wasn’t in the throes of real depression.

Until months passed and the pain didn’t yield to any of the multitude of treatments my doctors were trying; it only got worse. I finally realized it wasn’t just the physical pain that was consuming me. It was the whole ungodly unfairness of it........

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