The Oregon Pain Science Alliance is an all-volunteer nonprofit 501c3 corporation registered in Oregon. Our members come from the health care community, their patients, and others who follow pain science research. Our goal is to share current information on how pain experiences are formed, and how pain science understanding can bring hope and choice to persistent and chronic pain sufferers.

The Alliance was formed in 2018, with the purpose of expanding our community’s understanding of amazing neuroscience research discoveries that relate to the mechanism of persistent pain. We are health care workers and individuals who have found benefit from this new perspective.

Our past and current efforts have been to support the annual Oregon Pain Summit, and to promote spring and fall monthly community events to introduce the essence and significance of recent neuroscience research about how pain experiences are constructed.

Our members all have a basic understanding of current neuroscience-based pain experience concepts. They pay annual dues to fund the Alliance, and also participate in some aspect of Alliance activities. We seek funding opportunities to further enable the Alliance in the promotion of “Pain Science Life Stories,’ an  annotated, searchable database archive for video recording and resources to further awareness in the practice and power of Pain Science. And to continue to provide in-person and online gatherings.

Most of our members have or have had some experience with persistent pain or its treatment. The Alliance is centered on the understanding that pain is not simply the consequence of Biomechanical tissue damage, but as revealed by neuroscience research in recent decades, pain is a protective response our brains produce, which is influenced by many BioPsychoSocial factors. So tissue damage may be a factor, but is not always present when pain is experienced.

We believe the BioPsychoSocial explanation makes sense, but that we understand only a tiny fraction of how pain experiences occur and how to moderate them. We are confident more research and practice will reveal a better understanding of the pain experience and management, and believe OPSA is our best available way to be connected with that developing understanding and will aid our ability to share our growing insight with others.

OPSA has both healthcare workers who practice based on the current BioPsychoSocial understanding, and ordinary people who believe that OPSA can more effectively help with understanding and education of pain science as a group vs. doing this as individuals. One goal is to engage more people as we become more visible through upcoming Community Meetings in the fall season, and contact with clinicians in neighboring communities who understand and believe in the current BioPsychoSocial model for dealing with chronic pain.

We are an all-volunteer organization of health care clinicians and people seeking pain relief, located in and around Corvallis, Albany, and Lebanon, Oregon. Our roots were established in 2016 by three local clinicians (a doctor, a physical therapist, and a mental health professional) after attending a Lorimer Mosely conference in Seattle. Their excitement for being able to help chronic pain patients, without drugs, through pain science education, started with their first presentation to a group of 80 community members who suffered from persistent pain, but were not getting lasting healing results from drugs, shots, and surgeries. After this, an informal group which eventually became OPSA, began offering 8 sessions annually featuring a presentation on pain science and self-management, followed by patients telling personal pain journey success stories. We were sidelined in this education effort in 2020, but the membership and Board of Directors concentrated on understanding how we can build membership, strengthen the organization, and cement OPSA as a credible non-profit organization by applying for and receiving our 501(c)3 status (applied 12/30/2020; received status 3/31/2021). We hoped to begin these live Community
Meetings again in the fall of 2021, but circumstances have kept us with these gatherings via Zoom.

The healthcare members of OPSA have collaborated in the annual Oregon Pain Summit aimed at informing and training healthcare workers. The fourth summit will be held in the fall of 2022. OPSA became an organization when we passed our By-laws and Policy Statement in 2019. We maintain Nonprofit Corporate status with the State of Oregon in 2020, also registering with the Oregon DOJ.

To become the leader and model in pain care management and mastery for the country by promoting education of healthcare professionals and communities in the latest pain science understanding.

To participate in the transformation of society’s understanding of pain and to provide hope and choices for individuals to improve their pain care options and outcomes by engaging in pro-active management and mastery of their pain experience.