# Alan Gordon: The Therapist Who Created Pain Reprocessing Therapy _Who is Alan Gordon? The psychotherapist who created Pain Reprocessing Therapy, founded the Pain Psychology Center, and wrote The Way Out. His credentials and the evidence._ _Published 2026-06-06 · 6 min read_ ## Answer summary Short version. Alan Gordon is a licensed psychotherapist who created Pain Reprocessing Therapy, the method tested in the 2022 University of Colorado Boulder trial where two thirds of people with chronic back pain became pain free or nearly pain free. He founded the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles and wrote The Way Out. He's a real, credentialed clinician, the research is peer reviewed, and here's the full picture. ## Who is Alan Gordon? Alan Gordon is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist who created Pain Reprocessing Therapy, a treatment for chronic pain that teaches the brain to switch off pain that has become a false alarm. He founded the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles, one of the largest clinics in the country focused on chronic pain, and he wrote the 2021 book The Way Out with Alon Ziv. If you found this page because you're checking whether he's the real deal before you trust the method, here's the short answer. Yes. He's a credentialed clinician, his approach was tested in a peer-reviewed trial published in a major medical journal, and he teaches it openly. Your pain is real, and the method he built treats it as real. The rest of this page is the detail behind that. > **Evidence** > > **66%** > > Two thirds were pain-free or nearly pain-free after four weeks of the method Gordon created. > > *Source: Ashar, Gordon, et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2022. DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.2669* > > The University of Colorado Boulder trial tested Pain Reprocessing Therapy in 151 people with chronic back pain. 66% ended up pain-free or nearly so, versus 20% on placebo and 10% with usual care. Gordon co-developed the treatment and helped run the study. It was specific to back pain, so treat it as one strong result, not a promise for every condition. ## How he got here Gordon didn't start in a research lab. He started as a graduate student in his own years of unexplained chronic pain. He saw doctor after doctor, collected diagnoses, and nothing helped. His mother handed him one of Dr. John Sarno's books, and the idea that pain could be a learned brain pattern rather than ongoing damage gave him a thread to pull. He recovered. Then he spent years turning that loose idea into something a therapist could actually teach, session by session, and testing it. That's the part that matters. Plenty of people have a recovery story. Gordon built his into a protocol and then helped put it through a controlled trial. ## What he created: Pain Reprocessing Therapy Pain Reprocessing Therapy, or PRT, treats most chronic pain as a false alarm. The brain learns a danger signal, fear keeps it switched on, and the pain keeps firing long after any injury has healed. PRT teaches the brain that the signal is safe, mostly through a technique called somatic tracking, where you turn toward the sensation with calm curiosity instead of dread. We cover the method in depth on our pain reprocessing therapy page, and the core technique step by step on our somatic tracking guide. The Way Out is Gordon's own book version of the same approach. ## Alan Gordon's credentials Here's the factual record. Gordon is a licensed clinical social worker. He founded and runs the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles, which has a staff of roughly two dozen therapists treating chronic pain. He's an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Southern California. He developed Pain Reprocessing Therapy and co-authored the 2022 Boulder study published in JAMA Psychiatry, one of the most cited chronic-pain treatment trials of recent years. He wrote The Way Out with Alon Ziv, published by Penguin in 2021, and he has been featured on national television discussing brain-based pain treatment. ## Is Alan Gordon legit? By the measures that matter for a chronic-pain method, yes. The treatment he created has randomized-trial evidence in a top journal, which is more than most self-help pain approaches can claim. He's a licensed clinician, not an anonymous coach, and he points to the research rather than asking you to take it on faith. The honest caveats, because both sides matter. He's a therapist and author, not a physician, so his work sits alongside medical care, not instead of it. PRT is not a cure-all. The Boulder trial was in chronic back pain, and roughly a third of people in it did not reach pain-free. And like any method, reading the book or believing the idea isn't the same as doing the daily practice, which is where most people actually get stuck. None of that makes him less credible. It just means the method is a tool, not magic. ## Want the method as a daily practice? PainApp runs Gordon's kind of approach as a guided daily practice, the part a book or a single therapist visit can't do for you. It's on iPhone and Android. ## Next step **The method is real. The daily practice is the hard part.** Gordon built the approach and proved it works. Keeping it up, the right way, day after day, is what we built PainApp to help with. [Find out if this applies to you](https://painapp.health/assessment?utm_source=seo&utm_content=alan-gordon&utm_position=end) *A few minutes, and it tells you whether this fits your pain.* ## Frequently asked questions ### Who is Alan Gordon? Alan Gordon is a licensed psychotherapist who created Pain Reprocessing Therapy, founded the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles, and wrote The Way Out (2021). His method was tested in the 2022 Boulder back-pain trial published in JAMA Psychiatry. ### Is Alan Gordon legit? Yes. The treatment he created has randomized-controlled-trial evidence in a major medical journal, he's a licensed clinician, and he teaches the method openly. The fair caveats: he's a therapist and author, not a physician, the approach isn't a cure-all, and belief isn't the same as the daily practice. ### What are Alan Gordon's credentials? He's a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), founder and executive director of the Pain Psychology Center, an adjunct assistant professor at USC, the developer of Pain Reprocessing Therapy, and a co-author of the 2022 JAMA Psychiatry Boulder study. ### Is The Way Out by Alan Gordon worth reading? For most people new to the idea that chronic pain can be a learned brain pattern, yes. It's a clear, warm explanation of his method. Where readers get stuck is doing the practice consistently, which the book can't watch for. We cover that on our guide to The Way Out. ### Is Pain Reprocessing Therapy evidence-based? Yes, with the usual limits. The Boulder trial (n=151) found 66% of chronic back-pain patients became pain-free or nearly pain-free, a result very rarely seen in pain trials. It was one condition and not everyone responded, so research suggests it helps many people rather than guaranteeing it for all. ### How can I work with Alan Gordon or the Pain Psychology Center? The Pain Psychology Center offers therapy with its staff of clinicians; details are on their own site. If you want the method as a self-guided daily practice instead, that's what apps like PainApp are for. Either way, keep your own doctor in the loop, especially to rule out anything structural first. ## Related pages - [Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT)](https://painapp.health/pain-reprocessing-therapy) - [The Way Out (Gordon): how to apply it](https://painapp.health/books/the-way-out) - [Somatic Tracking, Step by Step](https://painapp.health/somatic-tracking) - [Neuroplastic Pain: Symptoms and Causes](https://painapp.health/neuroplastic-pain) - [Dr. John Sarno](https://painapp.health/tension-myositis-syndrome/dr-sarno) - [The Books That Explain Neuroplastic Pain](https://painapp.health/books) ## References 1. Ashar YK, Gordon A, Schubiner H, et al. Effect of Pain Reprocessing Therapy vs Placebo and Usual Care for Patients With Chronic Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. 2022;79(1):13-23. [link](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34586357/) ## About the author **[Tauri Urbanik](https://painapp.health/authors/tauri-urbanik)** — Pain Science Researcher Researching neuroplastic pain science and recovery methods for 3+ years. Canonical URL: https://painapp.health/pain-reprocessing-therapy/alan-gordon ## Medical disclaimer This page is for educational purposes and is not medical advice. Pain is real. Neuroplastic pain is not imaginary. If you are dealing with chronic pain, please work with a qualified clinician who can evaluate your specific situation.