Phyllis Berger of Sandton, Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa is a Physiotherapist and Acupuncturist that has developed innovative approaches to chronic pain management.
She has been involved in Pain Clinics since 1994 and soon realised that pain relief was dependant on stress factors and that relief would be more rapidly achieved by blocking pain with electrical currents and acupuncture, relieving anxiety and releasing emotions, and increasing pain free movements with excercise especially those that are enjoyable and are able to improve compliance and persistence.

For many years Phyllis has focused her attention on the brain and its complex chemical interactions and electrical circuitry as a means of increasing pain relief with electrical currents and acupuncture.  She has had the opportunity to research certain newly developed electrical currents that affect the brain.  These currents have been found to increase pain relieving substances and reduce inflammation in the body.  She has also researched and published articles in medical journals both in South Africa and internationally on other newly developed electrical currents that are applied to the body such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and modified direct currents, among others.

Phyllis also recognized that both patients and therapists did not always understand that pain management depended on the state of mind of the patient, their desire to get well and their beliefs and expectations.  She also realised that there were many methods that were unknown or unpractised by therapists that would assist more patients to achieve pain control.  She became determined to share her knowledge by writing the Journey to Pain Relief as a self help book to provide information, advice and treatment that would empower both the chronic pain sufferer and the therapist.

The journey to pain relief is still in its infancy.  Starting this journey by learning to combine different treatments, tapping into the body's inherent knowledge and ability to heal, increasing excercise ability, producing chemical substances in the body with acupuncture and electrical currents and encouraging positive attitudes will bring many more patients to a destination of pain relief and control.