Find your way back to moving with confidence
For persistent back, neck, jaw and joint pain, especially when pain has made you cautious, guarded or unsure about movement.
Imagine going for a walk because you want to, bending to pick something up without hesitation, or enjoying an activity without constantly checking how your body feels.
Helping you move towards that freedom is what this work is about.
Julie Horton HDip CBH | Pain Recovery Specialist
I combine Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy and guided imagery to help you understand what may be keeping pain and fear going, and rebuild confidence in movement.
Does any of this sound familiar?
✓ You thought an injury should have healed by now, but the pain keeps returning.
✓ You’ve been told a movement is safe, but you still hesitate, brace or expect it to hurt.
✓ Some days you can do far more than expected; on another day the same movement sets everything off.
✓ Your scans or tests may be normal, or show changes that still don’t seem to explain the whole picture.
✓ You’ve started changing how you move or avoiding activities because you’re worried about making things worse.
✓ You want to get back to exercise, sport or everyday movement without constantly thinking about your body.
Persistent pain does not always begin with a clear injury. It may develop gradually, keep returning, or carry on long after treatment. You may have been told that movement is safe and still find yourself bracing or avoiding things, or your scans may not seem to explain how much pain you are in.
I have a particular interest in persistent back, neck and jaw pain, and I also work with shoulder, hip, knee, foot and other musculoskeletal pain where the way it behaves suggests there is more going on than the tissues alone. I especially enjoy working with people whose pain has become linked with particular movements, so that bracing and avoidance have started to take over.
Persistent back pain: when the pain no longer seems to make sense →
Why can pain continue?
Pain is protective
Pain is part of the brain and body’s protective system. When something may be injured, threatened or unsafe, pain is an extremely useful way of getting our attention and changing what we do. After an injury, becoming cautious is a sensible response.
Protection can outlast the need for it
After an injury or a long spell of pain, the brain and nervous system can become very good at anticipating danger. A bend, a lift, a turn of the head or an opening of the jaw can start to be linked with pain, so the body braces and the pain response begins earlier and more readily, sometimes before anything harmful is happening. The pain is completely real. The protective system has simply become more cautious than it needs to be, and avoiding the movement can stop it from ever finding out that the movement may now be safe.
This kind of learned protection can develop in any part of the body, which is why the same approach can be relevant to more than one kind of pain.
What if my scan does show something?
A scan finding does not automatically explain the amount of pain you are experiencing. Changes such as disc degeneration and bulges are also commonly found in people who have no pain at all. That doesn’t mean scan findings should be ignored. They need to be understood alongside your symptoms and how your pain behaves, and both things can be true at once: there can be a genuine structural change and a protective response that has become more sensitive.
Why your scan findings might not be the whole story →
What has been learned can change
This is where neuroplasticity comes in. It simply means that the brain changes with experience, and whatever it repeatedly practises, predicts or prepares for becomes easier to do again. That is wonderful when you’re learning to drive or play an instrument, but the same process can make guarding and protection automatic. Fortunately it works both ways. New experiences can help the brain update what it expects and learn a different response. In other words, the brain can finally get the memo that it doesn’t need to be on such high alert.
WHAT CLIENTS SAY
“Each week built nicely on the last — overall it was spot on. I feel more confident because I now have actual tools to use when pressure, injury fear or doubt kicks in.”
James, Ireland
What does recovery work look like?
First, we make sense of what is happening
Understanding how pain is created, and what may be keeping your own protective system on high alert, can reduce some of the fear and confusion around what you are experiencing.
Then we learn how to respond differently
You develop practical ways to settle high-alert responses, change unhelpful patterns of attention, fear or tension, and respond to symptoms with more confidence.
Then we rehearse and test what your body can do
When movement has become associated with pain or fear, we identify the thoughts and fears that show up when you move, decide how you’d like to respond, and rehearse that response in your imagination first, through guided imagery or, if you prefer, clinical hypnosis, at a pace that feels manageable and with you in control throughout. We then build on this through small, carefully chosen real-life experiments, giving your brain new experiences and evidence about movement, activity and everyday life.
The rehearsal is preparation. The real learning comes from the small experiments, where your body gets to show you what it can do.
And as your confidence grows …
The aim is for movement to become more ordinary again: less of a decision, less of a worry, and more a natural part of your day.
I’m Julie Horton
I know firsthand how pain can become persistent
I lived with persistent abdominal and pelvic pain for decades. Years later, after a bad fall and twisting injury to my back, the pain became severe and disabling. Although investigations identified some nerve involvement, the intensity and persistence of the pain seemed far greater than the physical findings alone could explain.
Looking back, I no longer see those as completely separate chapters. I can see a common thread in a brain and nervous system that had become very practised at pain and protection. Understanding that changed the way I responded to my body and ultimately helped me recover.
I’m now a Pain Recovery Specialist and Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist. My approach combines modern pain science and Pain Reprocessing Therapy with clinical hypnosis, guided imagery, mindfulness and practical psychological tools.
WHAT CLIENTS SAY
“I felt relief that Julie really heard and understood how the issues I was experiencing made me feel.”
Mark A., UK
This approach can be relevant to:
✓ Persistent back or neck pain
✓ TMD and persistent jaw pain
✓ Shoulder, hip, knee, foot or other joint pain that has outlasted healing, or that medical assessment and scans do not fully explain
✓ Persistent pain after surgery, once complications have been appropriately assessed and movement is medically appropriate
✓ Pain, or fear of pain, that has led you to stop bending, walking, reaching, turning your head, opening your jaw fully or returning to activities you used to do
If your pain doesn’t fit neatly into one of these, get in touch. We can talk through whether this approach may be suitable for you.
You may already have a diagnosis, and that diagnosis matters. We also look closely at how your pain behaves: how it changes, what seems to trigger it, when it eases and whether the pattern suggests that learned or sensitised pain processes may also be contributing. Wherever the pain is, I would want you to have had appropriate medical assessment first, and anything new, changing or unexplained should be checked by a doctor or physiotherapist before we begin.
Sometimes the biggest clue is how your pain behaves
- Does the pain vary from day to day?
- Does it change with stress, attention or context?
- Can it ease when you feel safe, relaxed or absorbed in something?
- Can movements, situations or everyday activities trigger symptoms even when they are not normally dangerous?
- Can symptoms flare hours later rather than during the activity itself?
- Are there times when you can do more than expected without the symptoms you feared?
- Do symptoms seem linked to certain places, times, situations or routines?
- Does the pain seem much greater than your tests or scans would lead you to expect?
Patterns like these are not a diagnosis, but they can show that your protective system may be playing a part, and that gives us something useful to work with.
Working together
My approach is personalised to you: your pain history, the way your symptoms behave, the movements or activities that have become difficult, and what you want to get back to doing.
Most people work with me over a number of sessions, giving us time to understand what may be keeping the pain response going, practise new ways of responding and gradually build confidence in movement and everyday life.
WHAT CLIENTS SAY
The breathwork, tension-release and thinking tools helped me in real situations, simple but effective. I often found myself practising them without even realising.
Allie, UK
My credentials
My training brings together Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy, Pain Reprocessing Therapy, CBT, ACT and mindfulness, with specialist study in psychological approaches to persistent pain.
✓ Higher Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (Hypno-CBT®)
Trained with the UK College of Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy, London. The qualification is benchmarked at Level 5 by NCFE, and the training is approved by the British Psychological Society for continuing professional development.
✓ Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT)
Practitioner training with the US-based Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center, in the approach developed by Alan Gordon to help people change learned pain and protective responses.
✓ Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Training with Dr Russ Harris, internationally recognised ACT trainer and author of The Happiness Trap and ACT Made Simple.
✓ Specialist ACT for Chronic Pain
Training with Professor Kevin Vowles, a clinical psychologist and researcher at Queen’s University Belfast, whose work includes developing and delivering pain rehabilitation within the NHS.
✓ Integrative Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Training informed by Dr Judith Beck’s cognitive therapy model. Judith Beck is President of the Beck Institute and the daughter of Dr Aaron Beck, widely recognised as the father of cognitive therapy.
✓ Professional memberships
Member of the British Pain Society and registered with the General Hypnotherapy Register (GHR).
✓ Professional insurance
Fully insured for online practice, including work with clients in the UK and Ireland.
Ready to take the next step?
What would you like to get back to doing? You are welcome to bring that hope to our first conversation, even if you are unsure how to get there.
Insights from the blog
Do you push through pain or avoid it? How our responses can become learned habits
How pushing through or avoiding pain can become learned habits, and how recognising them can help us move forward.
Why your scan findings might not be the whole story
How scans can provide important information, but still need to be understood in context.
The sugar pill story — what the placebo effect is really trying to tell us
What the brain’s own built-in pharmacy suggests about how expectation and meaning shape persistent pain.
What holiday pain relief is actually telling us
Why symptoms easing away from home may reveal something important about the nervous system.
Still have questions?
You may find the answer in my FAQs, including questions about neuroplastic pain, PRT, hypnotherapy, medical diagnoses and what sessions involve.