Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.272 'Understanding Pain in 2026 - Pt1/4' with Dr. Bronnie L. Thompson & Ben Whybrow
Transcript
- 0:00You're listening to the STA Clinician Podcast, connecting clinicians across healthcare.
- 0:20For the last five years as the Sports Therapy Association podcast.
- 0:23My name is Matt Phillips, creator of runchatlive.com.
- 0:26And as always, this episode is being recorded live on the Sports Therapy Association
- 0:31YouTube channel and Facebook page on a Tuesday night at 8pm.
- 0:36So a new month, February 2026, in case you're watching this in the future. And we have a new topic.
- 0:42Last month, the topic was neurodivergence in healthcare, with four fantastic
- 0:46episodes providing valuable information to help soft tissue therapists work
- 0:49closer and more efficiently with neurodivergent patients and clients.
- 0:54Available as always on all popular podcast apps and YouTube.
- 0:58And as we mentioned last month, if you are interested in joining,
- 1:03if you're a neurodivergent MSK clinician yourself,
- 1:05whether with formal diagnosis or not, if you would like to join our private
- 1:10neurodivergent MSK clinicians Facebook group, then you're very welcome.
- 1:14Created by myself just for support, a safe non-judgmental chat or just sit back
- 1:18and chill and listen and whatever you like and there are joining questions but
- 1:22you're all welcome to come along to that and yeah we'd love to see you,
- 1:26Right. So February is here. And the focus this month on the SDA Coalition podcast
- 1:31is understanding pain in 2026.
- 1:34I feel like we need more than a month to get into that topic,
- 1:36but we've got a month. We've got four episodes with some amazing guests coming up.
- 1:40And I personally think never, never a better time.
- 1:43There's so much changing and evolving information out there regarding pain,
- 1:46how to explain it, when to treat it, how to treat it.
- 1:49And as healthcare professionals, we have an ethical, moral, and professional
- 1:53obligation to stay current with modern understandings of pain in order to provide
- 1:58competent, compassionate, evidence-based care.
- 2:01So easier said than done, I would agree. But to help us get through that,
- 2:06then I have a great pleasure of bringing up very shortly Dr.
- 2:10Bronnie Lennox-Thompson and Ben Weibrow in part one. But I'm just going to let
- 2:14you know before we start that, just who else is coming up with this month.
- 2:17In part two, which is going to be on Wednesday, okay, there's a bit of to and
- 2:20froing this month on Wednesday next week, which is going to be.
- 2:25On February the 11th. Then my guests are going to be Professor Dave Newell.
- 2:30Head of the Centre for Pain and Active Inference Research at Health Sciences
- 2:34University, and Anna Maria Matsieri, director of the ST School,
- 2:38who is currently a PhD student at Health Sciences University.
- 2:42The week after that, on Tuesday, February the 17th, my guest is going to be Dr.
- 2:46Rachel Dewar-Haggart, a postdoctoral qualitative researcher within the Medical
- 2:50Sociology and Health Experiences Research Group at the Nuffield Department of
- 2:54Primary Care Services University of Oxford.
- 2:56Dr. Jira Haggart is going to be discussing the gender pain gap within a biopsychosocial context.
- 3:01And finally, part four is going to be on Wednesday, on February the 25th,
- 3:05where my guest is going to be Dr.
- 3:06Rachel Zofnus, who's going to be returning to the podcast, pain scientist,
- 3:10international speaker, science writer, with her new book, Tell Me Where It Hurts,
- 3:14coming out March the 26th.
- 3:16So an absolutely wonderful series of guests coming
- 3:19up to help us tackle this episode and it starts
- 3:22off very very shortly in part one before i
- 3:25bring up my guest just saying hi to people if you have
- 3:28joined us live and you haven't been on the show before then you
- 3:31are welcome to ask questions i can bring them
- 3:33up on the screen and showcase your wonderful profile pics and
- 3:36things for example mark ewan is first through the door tonight and says hello
- 3:40all gary benson says good evening all founder the sta we've got sir glenn murphy
- 3:45um who is also here lots of people coming to the door really nice to see you
- 3:48and hoping that you take advantage of the fact that you've joined us live and
- 3:51ask as many questions as you can right then,
- 3:55The time's come. Let's bring up my wonderful guests for part one.
- 3:59Dr. Bonnie Lennox-Thompson and Ben Weibrow.
- 4:06Hey guys, how are you doing? Hey, good day. Happy to see you, Matt.
- 4:11I'm absolutely happier to see you guys. I really am.
- 4:14I really appreciate you giving up your time, particularly, I mean,
- 4:17Ben, I love you to bits, but I am a bit awestruck.
- 4:20I'm sorry, Ben, there might be a little bit of kind of, you are great and amazing
- 4:23and your episode in when you were with us before, was one of the most talked
- 4:27about for plenty of time. But Dr. Bonnie L.
- 4:29Thompson, I've been a fan of for so long. I really have.
- 4:32And it's great to have you on the show. And I really appreciate it.
- 4:34Joining us from, not from England, but from,
- 4:37New Zealand, Christchurch, New Zealand. There you go. Down under.
- 4:42Always. Do you, do New Zealand people say they're down under?
- 4:45I thought that was like an Aussie trait. But are you guys happy saying you're down under as well?
- 4:48We are down under. Oh, that's cool.
- 4:51Yeah. Learning something already. I would have thought, yeah, that's great.
- 4:54No, really pleased. I've followed you for years. Great. I mean,
- 4:57I looked at your Twitter. We'll start off, Ronnie. I looked at your Twitter,
- 4:59which I think is where I probably found you back in the good old days when Twitter was useful.
- 5:03And you joined Twitter, I think it was back in like 2009. 2009
- 5:06i mean that's like i don't make you feel old but that was
- 5:09like that was earlier than a lot of people that joined there
- 5:12so you have been around spreading fantastic information for
- 5:14so long and it really is a thrill to have you on the show ben as
- 5:18well wonderful to have you back and in fact
- 5:21just to make you feel like you're not kind of like you know the kind
- 5:24of third person here on the date then then then i want you to
- 5:27start off and tell our wonderful listeners a little bit about
- 5:30yourself you were here like i said before with just after
- 5:33your fantastic piece in msk mag
- 5:36went to see it in the mud which was just so beautiful and amazing and that was
- 5:39nearly two years ago i told you it was two years ago it was episode 194 so i'm
- 5:45calling you now i did say i'd call you yeah here we are which sounds crazy it's
- 5:49amazing but for listeners who are not aware of the work you do ben could you
- 5:52give us a little summary and what the connection is with pain and our topic tonight,
- 5:56I have the joys of working for our wonderful NHS in a pain service as a physio for the past,
- 6:03well, I've now been in the service, this is my coming into seventh year, Matt, believe it.
- 6:09And so I will come on to Modern Pain Pro, which Bonnie and I do in a minute.
- 6:13But yeah, so I get to see our great British public, help them with their persistent pains.
- 6:18The thing I tell people who don't know what pain clinics are or anything about NHS, I.
- 6:24We see the people that no one else can help. And they go, ooh, sometimes.
- 6:30So yeah, we get the joy. People who have gone through conventional physio and
- 6:34all the usual support and surgery and procedures and scans and whatnot, I've got nowhere.
- 6:40And we get a ton of, these days, widespread pain, I would say now.
- 6:45I'm telling a lot of people that, I'm calling the Peter O'Sullivan patients,
- 6:50you know, the people who have got the back pain, afraid of movement,
- 6:52worried about the scan, et cetera.
- 6:54They're being dealt with a lot quicker, a lot better these days.
- 6:57So we're getting all the ones that don't fit that box.
- 7:00So that's why I do day-to-day workers on the side, which we talked about last time.
- 7:04There's a communication skills facilitator at Cambridge University,
- 7:07which is across the road from me.
- 7:10And teach medical students how to talk to people and try and change people's behavior.
- 7:15Fantastic. Well fitted in. That was amazing. And we should give a shout out
- 7:19also to your wonderful clinical communication podcast as well,
- 7:22which you've had some amazing guests on.
- 7:24And you put your voice to fantastic use there as well.
- 7:27All of these links to this will be in the show notes at the end of it.
- 7:31So, yeah, great to have you back. Thanks so much, Ben. And for people listening
- 7:34to the podcast, I suppose, watching live, Ben is actually tonight trying to
- 7:38break the world record for holding a rather large microphone for a show.
- 7:42It's in his left hand at the moment.
- 7:43So if you hear the noise, it's just the strain as his bicep is collapsing. Exactly.
- 7:49Right. Amazing. And Donnie, Donnie? No, Dr.
- 7:52Bronnie Lennox-Thompson. Thank you so much again. Could you,
- 7:55for people who don't know about you, and I'm hoping there's lots because what
- 7:58a great way to educate people.
- 8:01Tell us a little bit about your involvement, how you have come to be who you
- 8:05are working with this topic of pain.
- 8:08Thanks so much. And what a great opportunity to talk to a bunch of people who
- 8:13also want to learn about this weird thing that we call pain.
- 8:17I've been working in pain management, oh, most of my clinical career,
- 8:22in a wide range of roles from primary prevention,
- 8:28musculoskeletal management, so early management, ergonomics,
- 8:33right through to persistent pain management.
- 8:35I've been involved in policy development and now I am the lead for our post-grad
- 8:43programs in pain and pain management at the University of Otago.
- 8:47My background is occupational therapy with
- 8:50a psychology degree in the mix and my I guess on social media I've been writing
- 8:58a blog since 2007 which is an astronomically long time and that's been my contribution
- 9:06to the literature really I don't.
- 9:10Publish a lot of peer-reviewed research because I'm an educator and I live in
- 9:15that translation space.
- 9:17What does this stuff mean? Because I care about the fact that in my clinical practice,
- 9:25I have heard so many people tell me that sad story of hope and then despair
- 9:33as they've been offered something that wasn't ever going to work for their chronic pain,
- 9:39and the way that people have been stigmatized and poorly treated,
- 9:45their concerns dismissed.
- 9:47And I don't want to see that happen again.
- 9:50Part of it is that clinicians just don't know, and particularly over the last
- 9:5530 odd years that I've been in this business, many people still don't get given good education on.
- 10:04Anything other than neurobiology in their undergraduate training,
- 10:08which is concerning to me.
- 10:11And so clinicians don't know. And then our systems don't allow those clinicians
- 10:16that do know to do what we know works and helps people who are living with pain.
- 10:22So my passion is to get that knowledge out there to everyday clinicians and
- 10:27language that I hope isn't too esoteric and distant from actual speaking.
- 10:34Let's make it real, folks.
- 10:37That's great. Yeah, and just to reiterate, your WordPress, and it's still called
- 10:43healthskills.wordpress.com, so that shows like, you know, still the .wordpress.com,
- 10:48which is a testament to it as well.
- 10:50Don't monetize it. It's not flash because this is not about,
- 10:54for me, this is about a passionate way of getting stuff that's currently locked
- 10:59behind paywalls often or language that's really difficult to understand.
- 11:05And I want to get it out there. Because I don't know how many times clinicians
- 11:10have said, I don't know what to do.
- 11:14It's not working. How come? What do I do differently? Let's make it real.
- 11:21Fantastic. So people, if you are, please, if you're sending me an email,
- 11:25what CBD should I do, Matt?
- 11:26I'm just going to reply for the next week or so. You've got 20 years worth at
- 11:29healthskills.wordpress.com.
- 11:32Okay, there's a nice little bit of free stuff to read through there and see
- 11:34the evolution of thought as well, which must be amazing sometimes over 20 years.
- 11:38Great. Well, thank you guys. Also, just before we start getting into the meat
- 11:41of the question today, we should give a shout out as well to Modern Pain Care.
- 11:47How did you guys get involved with that? Because there's been,
- 11:50Mark's done some fantastic interviews recently, and I've loved watching him
- 11:53and the guests he has. He's such a good interviewer, really is.
- 11:56And for me to say that, that means that that's big kudos to him.
- 11:59So, yeah, how did you get involved with Mark? When did that happen?
- 12:02Mark and I have intersected, oh, gosh, probably before one of the San Diego Pain Summit meetings.
- 12:12And I really admire his passion and heart for helping people where they're at.
- 12:20And so I started to help him with developing the ACT Acceptance and Commitment
- 12:25Therapy teachings because I'm an ACT practitioner and I think it's a really
- 12:30flexible, useful way of helping people, anybody, including clinicians,
- 12:35figure out what to do when somebody's there in front of us.
- 12:40And so that's how I first met. And then Ben came along and has wowed us. It's just amazing.
- 12:48So Mark and I had briefly encountered before, just like we are tonight.
- 12:53And then I think it was about spring of last year, I got a message on X saying,
- 12:57are you free to chat about an idea I have?
- 13:00And he basically tried to grow Modern Pain Prone as it is now, extra stuff on it.
- 13:07And so I came in, when did we start that first program? The summer, I'm going to say.
- 13:11And it's been the three of us ever since supporting, I don't know how many people we have now.
- 13:17A good amount, yeah. And it's just, well, Ronnie and Mark do,
- 13:24is it twice a week, I think, group mentoring as part of that?
- 13:27We have regular content, monthly webinars with one the other weekend,
- 13:32which we alternate. and so far everyone's not signed up is hanging around so
- 13:37we're clearly doing something right.
- 13:39Yeah. The aim is that people hear new material but often it's that translating
- 13:46it into practice and how do I do it when I'm on my own?
- 13:52And we know that growing and developing as clinicians shouldn't ever stop but
- 13:58often people are left there feeling like they should know it all and do it all.
- 14:04And that's not really feasible.
- 14:07In my profession, occupational therapy, clinical supervision is part of what we do.
- 14:12It's normal, that mentoring, that growth and development as a clinician,
- 14:17but that doesn't apply to all professions and so what we're trying to do is
- 14:21offer that, that mutual ongoing learning and discovery and problem solving.
- 14:29It's been a real privilege to watch people learn new stuff, try it out,
- 14:34discover what works for them at that moment and then continue.
- 14:40That's just the most incredible thing to watch. I love it.
- 14:44Yeah that's amazing right then
- 14:47oh just i was saying off air i just feel like we're biting off
- 14:50so much more than a chew i'd never feel just so overwhelmed by
- 14:53a topic like it's about pain but it's so we're
- 14:56going to try and break it down i mean the idea is and particularly why
- 14:59i'm so excited that you two are opening up this series some
- 15:01of four episodes is because i think you know
- 15:05one one of the lovely things i love about you guys is you
- 15:07do manage to break the complex down into like digestible but
- 15:12not kind of too diluted there
- 15:14lose its meaning i think you both got a great knack at that so i'm
- 15:18going to start off with a question of of what do
- 15:21you think are the most important developments over let's
- 15:25say the last five or ten years in terms of
- 15:28understanding pain that's a
- 15:31horrible question it's a big one isn't it when did
- 15:35we when did the term nosy plastic come along i want to say it was like 2017
- 15:38was over i think the fact that we it's even just because we even use if we start
- 15:47with brain right and then we're in oh no it's not just brain it's nervous system
- 15:50and now it's not just even nervous system it's just hold but i know it's just gone.
- 15:54And it's just the fact that we have to zone i'm gonna say zoomed out.
- 16:00We're considering so much stuff. The Neuromatrix term came out was early 2000s or something.
- 16:06But I think the grasping of how much it can be influenced by what I say to our
- 16:12groups are anything and everything is so important.
- 16:16And we just, from just my own experience, barely say brain or barely say nervous system anymore.
- 16:25If they want to ask about it, we even just say you, right?
- 16:30And your life and stuff like that because it's you know it's a person at the end of the day,
- 16:36and i think for me it's the fact that you we've just
- 16:39it's it's anything and everything was zooming out it's
- 16:42not just what's inside it's how it's
- 16:45affecting that person the past the present and the
- 16:48future and considering all that and
- 16:52i think in a way for me this helps
- 16:55actually as a clinician feel more
- 16:58gives you more options feels more kind
- 17:01of oh it's not just about thinking certain
- 17:04ways or you know resetting things anything like that it's like well could we
- 17:09consider these parts of your life and you know i'm sure people have mentioned
- 17:14in the past and we'll come on to about whether it's movement sleep mental health
- 17:18etc but and beyond that social things like what they enjoy all that stuff like,
- 17:24considering so much I feel like it opens up options and although it can sound a bit,
- 17:29high in the sky vague you know so everything and everything what does that mean to me but.
- 17:36From my view it gives you more options of things to try I think.
- 17:41It's really interesting because I've been around a while.
- 17:45And so, to me, I can see more popularity around certain concepts,
- 17:52like let's help people understand what might be going on and,
- 17:57oh, that might help change their experience.
- 17:59That's fantastic, but it's not new.
- 18:03In psychological approaches, CBT and such like from the 70s, We've been doing that.
- 18:10We've been talking about the, well, we'll use biopsychosocial,
- 18:16but I want to bracket that.
- 18:18We've been using that and applying that kind of thinking to pain since Engel proposed that.
- 18:25So that's the 70s, late 70s.
- 18:28And now I call it multifactorial because biopsychosocial's got such a lot of
- 18:35baggage. pains, this multifactorial thing, experience.
- 18:40And we've spent in all our research and discourse in pain research,
- 18:49we've spent a lot of time defining terms and grappling with concepts.
- 18:55And what I've seen probably in the last 10 to 15 years is this moving from academic,
- 19:02oh, we'll talk about this amongst ourselves, to clinicians having to grapple with these concepts.
- 19:09Not always well, not always with as much nuance as is needed,
- 19:16but at least people in clinical practice are getting to understand that pain
- 19:22is not just about issues in the tissues.
- 19:26And I think that's important. That's probably the most significant shift.
- 19:30Are we there yet? Hell no.
- 19:33We have a long way to go. We still don't know how to explain consciousness.
- 19:39So how on earth we think we can explain pain, I do not know.
- 19:45However, we're at least starting to take some steps towards helping people make
- 19:49sense of their experience.
- 19:52And what as clinicians what we probably need to learn is how to better do that,
- 19:58and maybe do a little less of some of our telling people what they should know or should think. Yeah.
- 20:07More hope, Matt.
- 20:10I feel like Lord Moses has been trying to say it as well but I've been trying
- 20:14to say it too when we talk about this. More hope,
- 20:18options, there's more hope people that can help. In the past,
- 20:22if you'd got a fibromyalgia 20 years ago-ish, a rheumatologist would go,
- 20:27here you go, it's leaflet.
- 20:29Bye. Learn to live with it.
- 20:32I was told that. So I live with fibromyalgia. I wasn't given that label.
- 20:36I learned that I had a chronic pain problem when I was 22, 21, 22.
- 20:42I'd had pain for quite some time, but I was seen by a fabulous clinician who
- 20:47I admire and respect deeply, Dr. Mike Butler.
- 20:51He was the director of the Auckland Regional Pain Service back in a long time
- 20:57ago and told, here, you have this chronic pain problem.
- 21:02We don't have anything we can do to offer you medically.
- 21:06And he, wonderful man, said, read this book, The Challenge of Pain by Mel Zackin-Wall.
- 21:13So I read it because I'm such a nerd and a geek and, you know, that's what you do.
- 21:18And it transformed my experience. It helped me begin to do things again. How awesome is that?
- 21:27Fibromyalgia is one of those terms that's kind of tossed around.
- 21:32And what I am struck by at the time was that he said, we don't have anything
- 21:38medically to help you, but the learning how to live with it part was up to me.
- 21:44There wasn't guidance. There was a pain service, but I wasn't bad enough to need it.
- 21:49So I wasn't taking medications, and I was moving, not very well.
- 21:54So that learning how to live with that part, that bit we've gotten much better
- 21:59at dealing with, but we're still not there yet.
- 22:03We're still thinking if I reduce the pain, the person's magically going to, bing, get better.
- 22:09People with angina.
- 22:12Don't always live with it. Their angina pain is not there all the time, right?
- 22:18There are times when they don't have angina. But they live life differently
- 22:22because they anticipate it could come back.
- 22:26That's why this disentangling from experiencing pain, what it is,
- 22:33and what it means to that person is so important.
- 22:36Because if you think, if I do something, my angina is going to happen and then
- 22:42I'm going to die, you're going to change your life.
- 22:46So addressing just pain intensity is never enough.
- 22:51And so conceptually, we need to think really hard, what is it that I'm doing
- 22:56as a clinician? What am I treating?
- 22:59A person, a piece of nociception, their beliefs, the intensity of pain,
- 23:06the interference, the distress, which bit am I tackling?
- 23:10Because that makes a difference to what we do and also how we think about that
- 23:15person who's experiencing pain.
- 23:18See, I said I had soapboxes.
- 23:21So not the word. So not the word. I can't think of the nemesis of a soapbox
- 23:27yet, but I'll think about it.
- 23:29I could just sit back and let you take turns and talking after doing that.
- 23:33I really wanted to see how Ben's going to respond to Bronnie.
- 23:37But I just want to kind of recap a few things you mentioned there.
- 23:40I find it so difficult these days, especially in soft tissue therapy,
- 23:45for example, people are laying their hands on somebody who are still being.
- 23:48I'm talking about the UK now, so I don't know how much this will make sense
- 23:51or applies in New Zealand.
- 23:53But I think when there's soft tissue therapy, there are still a
- 23:57lot of people who are being taught and therefore believe that the issue
- 24:00isn't in the tissue and i still think that they
- 24:02gently need to be kind of guided into moving
- 24:06slightly away from that and understanding like you
- 24:08say that there's a person on the end of that knee so that's still an issue
- 24:11and i think there's you know it's a big challenge for a lot of
- 24:14people out there but then we've also got probably a lot
- 24:17of listeners to this podcast because we're at like episode what are
- 24:19we 272 now we've been saying it since jack chief
- 24:22started in part one with imposter syndrome that the
- 24:26issue is not always in the tissue and i think with for a
- 24:28large population now there is an issue where.
- 24:31They've they've read explain pain they've done that and
- 24:34they've watched all the mosley videos and everything and they've gone
- 24:37through this stage now where they are kind of falling into
- 24:41the trap of moving everything into the brain now and pain's an
- 24:43output of the brain and and in a way they're still forgetting about the
- 24:46person aren't they because suddenly they just move from the it's still
- 24:49a tissue of the brain and they're not really thinking about the
- 24:52ecosystem everything around it so but i think most
- 24:55of our population are probably in that at the moment and i
- 24:57think that that could take some assistance in
- 25:01in just basically realizing that a lot of those
- 25:04principles that came out of mosley and butler
- 25:07in such entertaining form with the tales and and and the laughs and the comedy
- 25:12really infectious stuff that they they have actually made the brain a little
- 25:17bit too centered and they've correct this they continued the dualism if you
- 25:21like which we're trying to work away from and see the whole individual as one.
- 25:25So what tips would you have for people who are slowly starting to see that.
- 25:31What they may have been doing for the last five, six, seven years has been,
- 25:35even if they've been trying not to do it, it has been heard by the patient as,
- 25:39oh, so the pain's in my head.
- 25:42It's a tricky one, isn't it? Can I give you an opinion, Matt?
- 25:46This is kind of going to answer Mark's question he just put as well.
- 25:50It was a similar question about kind of pain education falling out of it.
- 25:54We've all seen that video. I think it was 2013, that Loma Mosey video. It's got like one.
- 25:58We should have done. It's necessary. everybody else with a small behind 101 isn't it yeah,
- 26:05Now, if I take you to that video, Matt, what do you remember from it?
- 26:10Is this the snake? Yeah, yeah. That's the first half. What's in the second half?
- 26:15I get confused. There's tools for you, which I watched religiously.
- 26:17No one will remember. Yeah.
- 26:20The key thing with this is, and
- 26:23people saw that. I'm making sweeping assumptions here. But we saw that.
- 26:28Here's this guy on the stage or someone else. And they do, as you say,
- 26:32really interesting, great presentations.
- 26:35The impression oh if i then say these words
- 26:39about the nervous system to my patient they'll get it they'll feel
- 26:41better the problem
- 26:44is that you can say that stuff but what worked with those wasn't the words right
- 26:52it's how it was delivered and now i don't know laura i don't know all the internet's
- 26:58at all but i'm sure he practiced i'm sure he had a bit of help and he planned it right,
- 27:05and let's be honest it's a bit entertaining of a talk so he
- 27:09you know there's it's how
- 27:12it's delivered right has to be relevant to the person not
- 27:15just saying about nerves and brains and stuff like that because that will just
- 27:19fall flat and most of us in a clinic on a tuesday afternoon aren't in the same
- 27:26charismatic mode as lorimer on a stage and all that jazz okay we don't have
- 27:31and he uses stories where we've been using facts,
- 27:33which land a lot better.
- 27:36So in my view is that it's not what said, but it's how it said.
- 27:42And the problem is the message of, oh, if you just tell people the nervous system
- 27:45and the brain, they'll get it. They'll feel better.
- 27:48But that wasn't what made the difference. It was how it was done instead.
- 27:54And if I can add to that, it's not just the how, it's also why.
- 28:01Does it matter? Yeah. I'm a nerd.
- 28:04I'd be really happy if you threw all the neurobiology at me as my rheumatologist did.
- 28:10Read this book, he says, and it got me really interested.
- 28:14But if my main concern about my pain is, can I still work? Am I going to be able to sleep?
- 28:23Is this going to last forever? What about my sex life?
- 28:27Then I actually don't think explaining anything is going to make a blind bit of difference.
- 28:34So I prefer to think about this education.
- 28:39We are in the game of helping people understand this weird thing that's happened
- 28:44to them, is happening to them.
- 28:47Some of that's going to come from what we say.
- 28:51Some of that's going to come from the way we are with them, our compassion,
- 28:55our care, our being human.
- 28:57Some of the sense-making is going to come from what they experience as we do
- 29:03things together, move differently, explore different things.
- 29:07Some of the sense-making people make comes from what they read,
- 29:11what they see on social media, when they talk to Aunty Mabel,
- 29:15when they listen to their kids.
- 29:18And so if we go away from this idea, I'm going to educate the patient,
- 29:22and we think instead we're helping this person make sense of what's going on for them,
- 29:28we might think a little less about the words that we use and a lot more about the end result.
- 29:35Which is that this person starts to feel more confident, that they start to
- 29:40feel like it's okay to move again.
- 29:44That the weirdness of what they're experiencing does not mean they're losing the plot,
- 29:50That's really what some of the functions of this explanatory model.
- 29:56As humans, we really want coherence. We want to make sense of everything.
- 30:00And sometimes the sense-making that we come up with is completely erroneous.
- 30:06If you've ever lain in bed in the middle of the night as a kid and seen a shadow
- 30:11on the wall from the outside, and you've thought, oh, that's a dog or a bogeyman
- 30:16or something, that's sense-making.
- 30:19It's not truth with a capital T, but it made sense because humans do that.
- 30:27And I think if we can bring that idea that humans try to make sense of everything.
- 30:33And that doesn't always mean that it's truth, but it's sense at the time.
- 30:40It's a story. It's helpful or not helpful explanation or narrative.
- 30:45And that even having made sense, it doesn't make a lot of difference if it doesn't
- 30:50change the person's willingness to start doing.
- 30:54And sometimes we need to do the doing for things to make sense.
- 30:59That might shift the way that we think about this explanatory stuff that we throw at people.
- 31:06We just sort of jump on people because, look, I'm smart and I know this stuff
- 31:10and you don't, I'm going to tell you what you should know and what you should think.
- 31:13I'm not sure that that's very humane and it's not very sensitive to what this
- 31:19person's main concern might be.
- 31:22See soapbox i mean
- 31:25i think both bony and i are giving the impression as we've
- 31:28become into these pain roles we
- 31:31actually explain less right yeah because when you write it and i completely
- 31:38agree a lot of the time people there's far more important things that the people
- 31:41are concerned about may not always be necessary and actually think about it
- 31:46patients remember what 20% if-ish of an appointment.
- 31:50And the more powerful things, as Pony completely said, is the doing.
- 31:55People talk about behavioural experiments or thought challenges or whatever
- 31:59terms you want to use, but that will stick with someone a lot more, that experience.
- 32:05Than saying, well, the nosy sectors in your lives are hypersensitive and they
- 32:11will go up these tracks, so this will blah, blah, blah, blah.
- 32:13Okay, they'll forget that.
- 32:15But they will remember doing let's take bending as an example bending task on
- 32:21doing it in a relaxed way that made them feel more comfortable and able to do
- 32:25it for the first time in two years for example and that will have a much bigger
- 32:29and they can probably get the same understanding from that,
- 32:33as they can from a 20-minute pain explains you that will forget anyway yeah
- 32:40i mean it's Absolutely reasonable.
- 32:43Somebody has a concern that, why do these drugs not work for me?
- 32:48It's really reasonable to explain that drugs work for certain types of pain
- 32:54and your type of pain is one that doesn't.
- 32:56So, nice plastic pain, for example.
- 32:59Great. Here's that. It's answering a question, answering a concern for that person. Okay.
- 33:06To just tell somebody stuff because you know it and because you think they should
- 33:11know it, like it's some sort of curriculum, I'm not convinced.
- 33:17But people will be making sense
- 33:19of everything that we say and do and everything that they experience.
- 33:23But guiding people through trying stuff out and gaining confidence in their
- 33:28own body, I think that's what we do as clinicians in pain.
- 33:32We help people try stuff out in a safe environment that we titrate the challenges
- 33:42of movement, context, everything.
- 33:45And then we help people become, we help them try it, we help them reflect on
- 33:51what it feels like. We help them make sense.
- 33:55It's therapeutic, but often it means the target of our therapy isn't what we think it is.
- 34:02Like, it's not the exercise and the fitness. It's the confidence.
- 34:07It's the, oh, yeah, I could try that. Oh, my body feels different.
- 34:13That kind of revolutionizes the way that we think about our work as pain clinicians,
- 34:19whether it's acute pain or longstanding pain.
- 34:23And yet we need to know that stuff for sure. I'm not saying we shouldn't,
- 34:28but I don't know that we always need to tell people stuff.
- 34:33That's what I was thinking. I'm glad you said that at the end because I'm thinking
- 34:36exactly what I was going to ask you.
- 34:37Is it a case where as clinicians, I mean, we're trained to be the kind of knowledge
- 34:45dispensers and a lot of our identity is, even if we don't wear a white coat,
- 34:49we need to feel that that's what the patient's seeing.
- 34:51You know so we've got confidence in ourselves so are you suggesting that part
- 34:56the take-home message for listeners should be that.
- 35:02And it's like you just said, it's good for you to know this stuff.
- 35:04That gives you the confidence to do what you do and to actually decide,
- 35:07right, I'm going to get that patient to do a squat now, even though I've done
- 35:10all the tests and I don't think I'm going to break them.
- 35:12So it's good for you to know as a clinician to have the confidence,
- 35:14but you don't need to give them a dialogue as you're putting them through that
- 35:18exercise to explain to them why you're allowing them to do it.
- 35:21Just keep it more in your head and just make it more about them and doing stuff.
- 35:24Is that kind of a take home?
- 35:27Pretty much. We need to know the stuff. We surely need to know it because that
- 35:32will influence our confidence.
- 35:34And, you know, research looking at pain education for clinicians shows that
- 35:40what it does change is a clinician's confidence to look at stuff that perhaps
- 35:46they hadn't felt confident to look at before.
- 35:49For example, psychosocial factors for people who are primarily musculoskeletal clinicians.
- 35:55So education helps us as clinicians, for sure.
- 36:00What we've really perhaps haven't defined so much is what competencies,
- 36:06what skills, what really works in practice in our interactions with people that are in pain.
- 36:13We've got some good ideas. There's some really nice papers that look at competencies
- 36:17for, I guess you could call it psychologically informed practice.
- 36:22I'd rather call it just good clinical practice. It's not psychologized what we do as clinicians.
- 36:29So we know some competencies that are really important but we haven't really
- 36:33thought about them as inactive and we're doing inactive work with ourselves and with our clients,
- 36:41our patients that's the bit that perhaps we need a little bit more work on ourselves and what.
- 36:50Does fundamentally, there'll be a few people, like, I'm going to use Bonnie's
- 36:56example here, who want to know more.
- 37:00And by all means, if they want to know more, grand.
- 37:03You can, even as a clinician,
- 37:09you can know the basics, but unless you're doing a PhD in pain pharmacology
- 37:15or something like that, all of the substance P, blah, blah, blah,
- 37:18is not going to change what you do.
- 37:21It's all about that person and what their needs are.
- 37:25What do they want? What are their goals? Everyone says, isn't it?
- 37:28What's their values, etc.?
- 37:31Most people, if they've got a diagnosis, especially of a widespread condition,
- 37:36they've probably seen a few other clinicians by the time they've seen you.
- 37:39If they've got a diagnosis, there's a high chance they've Googled it, gone on to AI, whatever.
- 37:46Found out, or may even be part of support groups.
- 37:49I will simply ask them, you've got this diagnosis, you've seen these people
- 37:52already, are there questions you have about this you'd like to ask if people haven't yet answered?
- 37:57I'll be honest, I would say 60 plus percent, the answer is no.
- 38:03And then we just move on and then get on to what's important to them.
- 38:08I think, yes, if someone's really interested or you feel it is,
- 38:12and this is very, very rare that they need to know something for whatever reason, fine.
- 38:18But otherwise, its role, as we've discussed, is getting less and less and less.
- 38:25We have to ask, what is it that people are looking for when they're asking,
- 38:29when they're coming to see a clinician?
- 38:31Some good research that talks that people want to know a name for what they've
- 38:35got because names are really helpful shorthand.
- 38:39If I say fibromyalgia, lots of people know what I mean by that.
- 38:45And they may be wrong, but at least it's a handle that we can use to talk about
- 38:50this experience that I have.
- 38:52So they want to know what it is. They want to know how long it's going to hang around for.
- 38:56They want to know what they can do to get better or if they can get better.
- 39:01And they want to know what not to do, pretty much.
- 39:05And then they want to know how can I do the things that matter to me?
- 39:11That's why people are seeking help. And we often assume that they're there to
- 39:19get their pain gone, and that can be part of why somebody comes to see us.
- 39:26And yet, if we ask a little more deeply, why do you want your pain to change or to be gone?
- 39:33It's almost always because I want to be able to do the things.
- 39:38I'm missing out on who I am, on what I want to do, how I want to be.
- 39:43So we assume again in clinical practice that if I take the pain away,
- 39:48they'll be able to go back to being who they were and doing what they were doing.
- 39:52That doesn't hold up in reality.
- 39:56Because if you've told somebody or they've learned that, oh,
- 39:59I must not do these particular movements, otherwise I'll end up with this horrible
- 40:05fate of living with pain, They're not living their best life.
- 40:10They're living a whole lot of rules.
- 40:13I hope that's not what we do, but I've heard it too many times to believe that
- 40:19it isn't still happening.
- 40:21So our idea of what it is that we're doing in therapy, I think,
- 40:26might need to shift a little bit.
- 40:28So we think a bit harder about, why is this person coming in to see me?
- 40:32I teach in our post-grad program the
- 40:35kind of question, why is this person presenting in this way at this time?
- 40:40What's maintaining their predicament? And what is their main concern?
- 40:45If we answer those questions, we might have a bit of a chance of helping that person.
- 40:52Because if we're not addressing their main concern, then we're doing something wrong.
- 40:59Fundamentally if they're worried about sweeping example someone's got their back pain,
- 41:08they're worried something's broken I remember seeing someone ages ago who their
- 41:15concern was that one of the lumbar discs had been removed somehow and they'd
- 41:24been scanned and I could get up the scan and show,
- 41:29No, it's a rare example, but sometimes those, and this is again,
- 41:34beyond explaining things.
- 41:36And again, as we just said, knowing the person,
- 41:39sometimes you have to address those things first or in a way where you do a
- 41:44thought challenge or you do a behavior experiment, which helps address it,
- 41:47that can then help them move forward.
- 41:52I think, I look at Cecily's question about is confidence in moving an easier
- 41:58cell than taking away pain? I would say no.
- 42:01I would say, actually, an easy cell is to say, oh, I'll take this,
- 42:04we'll do this, and your pain will go away.
- 42:06I would, from the experience, say it's harder to say about things that aren't,
- 42:12you know, again, you don't know why they're there, necessarily.
- 42:14You have to ask and find out.
- 42:16But I will often say to them that what we're going to go through hopefully help
- 42:23mean the pain interferes less in your life and then you can do more of what these,
- 42:29you've asked about their goals and values so you can do more of X,
- 42:32Y, Z, whatever that thing is,
- 42:34so you're not, I don't think you're straying in your thinking at all it's about sometimes,
- 42:40reframing it because yeah What I say is pain,
- 42:45can I help you find that pain is less of a problem for you?
- 42:49That's my admission is to help pain become less of a problem for you.
- 42:54Because one thing that we can't do is directly change pain.
- 42:59And very little of what we do if we're not offering people drugs is changing my perception.
- 43:05Really, we're not changing it very much, if at all, whether it's with our hands or our movement.
- 43:12All we're doing is giving the environment or the context where nociception and pain might change.
- 43:20But we're not directly addressing it.
- 43:22So if we can help pain become less of a problem for this person,
- 43:27if we can help the problems that pain poses for that person become less of a
- 43:32problem, then we might be doing something really helpful.
- 43:36Subtlety, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
- 43:40Those are the things that make the difference. Self-efficacy and confidence
- 43:43and all that stuff, rather than just, you know, where's it hurt?
- 43:50Or, you know, how strong you are.
- 43:54You could come on our group programs, Bonnie's done group programs.
- 43:57You could look around our groups.
- 43:59There'll be some strong people. There'll be some weak people.
- 44:02That doesn't mean who's in the most pain.
- 44:04Interesting. So he lost his weight as well. Yeah, he'd be very good people.
- 44:09I had a guy who used to swim like 100 lengths off the Olympic pool,
- 44:14backwards and forwards, but he was not able to sit.
- 44:18He couldn't work because he was so sore.
- 44:23Fitness, strength, that's not what we're targeting.
- 44:27Confidence is often the thing that we might be actually targeting the most.
- 44:34How much you mentioned before acute and
- 44:37chronic pain and i how about
- 44:40clinicians who are there and they're looking after people who have got like
- 44:43seemingly sporting related injuries and they can't run anymore and again that
- 44:47could have a massive effect on their psyche and it's definitely worth investigating
- 44:51that how much of this applies to people who aren't necessarily living with chronic
- 44:55pain but they just want to get back to sport again i think it's the same thing.
- 45:01It's about how much concern we have about that pain what does it mean,
- 45:08And if we're beginning to get someone to move again after an ankle sprain,
- 45:14if they're a runner, we've got to start somewhere and we start low and we start progressing.
- 45:21And we frame that with lots of talk about what it might be, give you explanations.
- 45:26We've been doing that since time immemorial.
- 45:30Ultimately, though, that person is beginning to gain confidence in their ability
- 45:35to do the thing that they want her to do.
- 45:37I can't see much distinction if any really,
- 45:42it is about us knowing stuff and creating that environment with the person so
- 45:48that they can make sense of and begin to experience their body differently or
- 45:54gain confidence whether the pain hangs around or it doesn't,
- 45:59I guess as well you may well and this might apply with athletes as well that,
- 46:04you've got to see whether you're as layman
- 46:07would kind of put it with the bear some people are afraid of
- 46:10the bear and you've got to ask them to poke the bear but some people
- 46:13are just ready to grab the bear and beat the hell out of it so you've got
- 46:16to when somebody is doing too
- 46:19much you've got to kind of help them realize and guide them that you're doing
- 46:23too much and this isn't going to be a shorter path what kind of cute help sort
- 46:27of ideas would you have when you're dealing with something like that it's not
- 46:29necessarily it's not kinesophobia or anything it's the opposite quite common
- 46:33too maybe yeah yeah Yeah, definitely.
- 46:37If I give an example, I can think of someone a couple of years ago who exactly,
- 46:43as you said, was the very much gun for it.
- 46:45They did like six, seven exercise classes a week of the belief that if they
- 46:50get strong enough, they're going to be strong enough.
- 46:52Or fit enough that the pain will become, go away.
- 46:57And with all these things, this isn't just a pain, I don't know,
- 47:00I don't know, sometimes these things get coined as pain skills or pain terms.
- 47:05It's a term for anything, like you were talking about there,
- 47:07about someone's going with a knee sprain.
- 47:10You're still going to use these skills of asking these Socratic open questions,
- 47:15well, how's that gone for you? Or what do you feel that's affecting on you?
- 47:19If I just turned around and said, well, do less, it might not end well.
- 47:24But can you perhaps, you know, help with them?
- 47:29Guided discovery is a big technical word, isn't it, Monty? But,
- 47:32you know, work with them. What could be driving this?
- 47:35What could be influencing? What could they do different?
- 47:39That person who was overdoing it, their goal at the end of our group thing was to watch TV twice a week.
- 47:46Okay? So actually, our psychologists say,
- 47:49soothe or calm things you know
- 47:52it's a is a we talk about selling
- 47:55but it is a harder challenge for me i think for others because to say about
- 47:59doing less rather than more or helping them discover that because i think the
- 48:04public assumption is oh if you're fit enough or if you're strong enough or flexible
- 48:09enough or whatever that would be good for you right.
- 48:13Because we see it you know in social media you know we're in this situation
- 48:18now in healthcare where we don't tell people to go and have bed rest for six
- 48:21weeks for their back pain they need to get up and keep moving but,
- 48:25But it can go the other way and can go too far for whatever reason.
- 48:30I like that. What have you tried and how has it worked? Yeah.
- 48:34In the short term and the long term. So what have you tried?
- 48:36Well, I've tried pushing through. How did it work in the short term?
- 48:40Well, I got to do the thing. In the long term, well, my pain's still hanging around.
- 48:46And then what else have you tried? And just working through it.
- 48:50And then where does it leave you?
- 48:52You've tried all these things. Here's the short and the not so,
- 48:55you know, the good and the not so good and the short and the long term.
- 48:58What sense do you make of that? What can we do differently?
- 49:03And the hardest thing, I think, is when somebody tends to push themselves is
- 49:09there's some mind chatter that's saying, I must, I should.
- 49:14It's good if I don't. All of those thoughts get in the way of actually chilling out a wee bit.
- 49:21And that's what we're tackling when
- 49:24we're helping people change an aim or a
- 49:27goal but if we use their experience what
- 49:31how well did it work what did you notice oh well
- 49:35actually my pain got worse and you know
- 49:37then we can help them reflect on what's
- 49:41going on in the real world minds are really
- 49:44really bossy and especially if you're
- 49:47a fairly driven performance kind of person it's
- 49:50really hard to not push yourself because
- 49:53then you're thinking well I'm being lazy and I'm
- 49:57just not going to be good enough and I'm never going to make it back and back to
- 49:59square one and well listen to that mind have a go at you and I guess that's
- 50:04partly why I come to using acceptance and commitment therapy because minds are
- 50:10so bossy and sometimes we need to have a little help to park them over there thanks for that,
- 50:18help mind but right now that's not helping and go with what I'm actually feeling
- 50:24and experiencing in my body and I think that's something that's.
- 50:30MSK clinicians of any kind can use. Guiding somebody to experience what it is
- 50:35like in their body when they try a thing out, rather than framing it with a
- 50:40whole lot of explanation,
- 50:43giving room for people to feel what they're feeling and notice it.
- 50:49And then the making sense part, that happens. There's some really nice research
- 50:53quite a while ago now from Vryan's lab in the Netherlands looking at,
- 51:01well, Belgium can't remember where now,
- 51:03looking at the active ingredient in a CBT program.
- 51:08What they did was they looked at, let's do the cognitive thing,
- 51:12let's do the talk bit, let's do the behavioral bit.
- 51:16And we'll start, we'll do this with individuals, but we'll measure each person
- 51:22individually and will vary when we do this information versus behavioral thing.
- 51:28In their analysis, what they found was it was the doing part that created the
- 51:33change, both to pain intensity and to the interference, what person did. It wasn't the talk part.
- 51:41Doing, dare I say it, trumps talking about it. I know.
- 51:48But doing, experiencing, feeling is so much more powerful. we can get that,
- 51:55Wow. Somehow it's four to nine. I don't know where that went. So it's interesting.
- 51:59I'm kind of thinking that this has been the introduction to understanding pain in 2026.
- 52:05And probably the title itself is something that we need to, maybe it should
- 52:09be why you don't need to understand.
- 52:10I know you don't need to understand pain, but you don't need to tell your patient
- 52:13about it. I mean, that would be the longer title.
- 52:15Understand pain as much as you want and geek out, but don't feel that you have
- 52:18to explain it all to your patient.com.
- 52:20That should kind of be where we are the most in In terms of evolution.
- 52:25I'm going to check about that. Helping people make sense of pain. Yeah. For themselves.
- 52:31Because that's really, I think, what we're doing.
- 52:35And it's what people are doing with or without our involvement.
- 52:40They are making sense. Sometimes the sense making isn't helpful.
- 52:46Because it's based on information that isn't correct or their mind is telling
- 52:50them stuff that seems to make sense but actually doesn't fit with what they
- 52:54really want and what they experience because we've got bossy minds.
- 53:00And so maybe if we think about that as what we are doing and also how we think
- 53:06about pain, maybe that might change our approach and we can get a little less
- 53:12tangled up in the linguistics.
- 53:16And, yeah, I'm an utter geek and conceptual clarity and being a pedant is kind
- 53:24of part of my jam because I think it's important that we know what it is that
- 53:28we're trying to influence.
- 53:30However, I don't know that everybody needs to have a lecturer or even us as clinicians.
- 53:38We don't need to have all this knowledge about neuroimmunology and all cortical
- 53:44processes and peripheral nociception.
- 53:48We kind of have some good ideas, but they're theories.
- 53:53They're incomplete and we don't know.
- 53:56And working in this uncertainty is actually where we're at and a little bit of,
- 54:02one of the things I do appreciate about Wiseman's pain education paradox and
- 54:07validation gap is their acknowledgement that we don't know and it's okay to
- 54:15sit in that space but man,
- 54:17it's hard because that's not what we're taught it's not how we're trained it's
- 54:23not how our minds want life to be,
- 54:26And yet, that's where we are, you know, when we're working with one individual in front of us.
- 54:33It's funny, isn't it, how by thinking we don't know that, we lose our value.
- 54:39We don't think we should be charging anybody when really it's the people who
- 54:42manage to think like that, who have got every right to charge more because they're
- 54:46going to be helping a patient probably much more by not, you know, by changing the chip.
- 54:50Right, look, we've got like what I'd love to do, and it's tricky,
- 54:54but I wanted to try and something that our listeners could do tomorrow morning
- 54:59or in the next couple of days, which would start putting this into effect.
- 55:03I know i know that both you're going
- 55:05to come out with just an absolute clinical pearl here that's going to be the soundbite but
- 55:09just something where you think when you go to work tomorrow and you
- 55:11open your door and you think right let's let them in just a different frame
- 55:15of mind or something or maybe something physical that you could avoid doing
- 55:18or do what would you think who wants to go first i will say then and this i've
- 55:27said this before but based off what we said tonight.
- 55:31Asking those questions and and then working out,
- 55:36where they are in their journey and we said about explanation but really now
- 55:41actually what do they already know what do they want to know if anything what
- 55:46do they need to know which is often not a lot,
- 55:50and then roll with it from there because most of the time they'll know a lot a high chance,
- 55:59there might not be much they want to know and very little in our roles we're
- 56:04not life and death services so very little they need to know if they have some
- 56:08questions go for it but otherwise as Bonnie said this earlier the big thing
- 56:12they probably want to know is,
- 56:14how can I move forwards,
- 56:17what can I do to improve the situation.
- 56:21Yeah I would suggest asking the person what is their main concern about their problem,
- 56:28That would be the first thing. I like to ask people, what's your theory?
- 56:32What do you think is going on?
- 56:34What sense have you made of what's going on? So I can use that to help me understand
- 56:40the decisions that they've been making and their concerns and then roll with it.
- 56:49Let's collaborate with the person. They bring immense knowledge.
- 56:55They're the only person that knows what their pain is like, is doing.
- 57:01They are the only ones in their body.
- 57:04And so we use that. And it's also their life, damn it.
- 57:08So anything that we ask people to do needs to fit inside their life,
- 57:13not our idea of what their life should look like.
- 57:17I'm saying that to exercise prescribers here.
- 57:21Use movements that people actually want
- 57:25to do and enjoy doing and it might not look like going to the gym or running
- 57:31or whatever exercise you want let's do movement stuff that people really want
- 57:36and need to do so that they will do it otherwise we're not doing much.
- 57:43Very cool okay i think this is gonna
- 57:46this is gonna be a great take home and it'll lead very nicely into
- 57:49the next three episodes so yeah understanding pain 2026 is about making sure
- 57:55that you're giving opportunity to understanding the person in front of you and
- 58:00getting the answers from them rather than getting knee deep and in debates and
- 58:05things yeah great okay fantastic,
- 58:09I don't want it to end, but it has to. It's 9.02. Well, we're not asking any questions.
- 58:13Perfect. So there were some questions here. I just wanted to say thank you for
- 58:16the people who did ask the questions. I'm just going to quickly run through
- 58:19them because I'm not ignoring you.
- 58:20Mark, Ewan, that was a really good question about pain education and Laura Mosley.
- 58:24And I think we went through that and answered that in a valuable way.
- 58:28Steve Kirby, you had some questions about how you acknowledge pain as physical,
- 58:33physiological, and psychological.
- 58:35You're asking whether Bonnie and Ben would agree activation of the nervous system
- 58:41helps prevent pain and improve quality of life.
- 58:43I guess activating the nervous system is something you're doing every time you
- 58:46ask the patient about themselves and get them to think and say things out loud
- 58:49so they can hear themselves.
- 58:51When we talk about activation of the nervous system, that's one of the most
- 58:54valuable parts, I imagine, isn't it?
- 58:56When is the nervous system not active? Yeah. When we're dead.
- 59:01So anytime we're doing, we've got a nervous system that's working.
- 59:07So what we're helping people do is self-regulate. So that's up and down regulation.
- 59:13And that's experiential.
- 59:18I would say, actually, most of the time, it's already overactive.
- 59:25Again, we're trying to calm it down. And again, activation of the nervous system is a very broad term.
- 59:33And that's going to be subjective, isn't it, of course? What does one mean by that?
- 59:37But as we've also said tonight, it's not just about a nervous system.
- 59:41It's about the person and their life, any more than that.
- 59:45Definitely. Everything around them. Great.
- 59:48I'm just checking in. Nikki Mansfield says, the final cue on my intake form
- 59:52is, what would you like to get out of treatment with me?
- 59:55It's the most valuable question on there, which makes me ask you,
- 59:58Nikki, why is it the last question you asked them? I'm just going to drop that one there.
- 1:00:01We can argue about that another time. But yeah, great point.
- 1:00:04It's such an important question rather than just spouting out.
- 1:00:07As soon as you see them and you think, I know what this is. It's the last CPD
- 1:00:10workshop I did. I know what you've got. I'm going to fix it.
- 1:00:13Very nice. Oh my gosh, royalties in here. David Poulter has joined us. Drupal 1-6.
- 1:00:18I can't believe I'm... Right, that's it. We're going on for another half hour. No, we're not.
- 1:00:23David has said, charisma and delivery enhance the contextual effects.
- 1:00:27Contextual effects, including placebo responses, are the strongest clinical
- 1:00:31effect we have. Gain trust. First seek to understand.
- 1:00:35Absolutely. Love that.
- 1:00:37Dave, you should come to the show and say that. We'll have to talk about it.
- 1:00:39Lovely to have you come on the show and say that out loud. It'd be really nice.
- 1:00:42I'm 100% too much pain-splaining. Good words, pain-splaining.
- 1:00:45Not enough empathetic listening. It's about them, not us. Very much so.
- 1:00:50If you still use X or Twitter, and there are some reasons to still go on there,
- 1:00:55and David Poulter 1116 or Rhett Looping is one of the reasons to still be on Twitter.
- 1:01:00So, yeah, Rhett Looping. We'll put that link in there. Even though he's not
- 1:01:03on the show, we'll make sure it goes into the show notes.
- 1:01:04Right i don't want to keep these wonderful people longer than i promised
- 1:01:07i would so thank you so much gary benson founder of the sta says
- 1:01:10thanks very much for an interesting talk about pain knowledge its value
- 1:01:13and knowing when to share it it's very cool heads rehab
- 1:01:16lovely to see you in here bonnie says thank you so much
- 1:01:19great opening to this month's talks on pain i think so too thanks
- 1:01:22very much bonnie right so just to let you
- 1:01:25know this is going to be the topic for the rest of month but we are going
- 1:01:28to come back next wednesday bear in
- 1:01:31mind if you are one of the wonderful people who joins us live then yeah it's
- 1:01:34going to be moving to a wednesday next week and just to bring this up for people
- 1:01:38who do like to see the visuals like i said before we're going to be here next
- 1:01:43week um a fantastic really good geek out chat looking at modern views of pain
- 1:01:49we're going to be joined by professor dave newell.
- 1:01:52I'm from the Health Sciences University and the head of the Health Sciences University.
- 1:01:56And Anna-Maria Matsieri, who a lot of you know, who might not know,
- 1:01:59she's doing a PhD at the moment because she needed something else to do to fill
- 1:02:03her time at Health Sciences University. Fantastic.
- 1:02:05We were talking about neurodivergency earlier. And there we go.
- 1:02:07There's a prime example. Fantastic. Good on you, Anna-Maria.
- 1:02:10It's going to be fantastic spending time with you there and hearing all about that.
- 1:02:14And then the week after, back to Tuesday, February the 17th,
- 1:02:17with Dr. Rachel Dura-Haggart.
- 1:02:18And that's going to be looking at a very interesting episode.
- 1:02:20So that's going to be addressing gender pain gap within the biopsychosocial context.
- 1:02:25And then finally, as I said before, our guest is going to be Dr.
- 1:02:28Rachel Zofniss, pain scientist and international speaker, science writer.
- 1:02:31And she's got a new book coming out, Tell Me Where It Hurts,
- 1:02:34coming out March 26th. That's going to be a wealth of information as well.
- 1:02:37So thanks very much, everyone who
- 1:02:39joined us live. Sometimes I forget about thanking you. I do appreciate it.
- 1:02:42But most of all, thank you to Dr. Bronnie Lennox-Thompson and Ben Weibrow for
- 1:02:47giving up their time tonight. Thanks, guys. Really appreciate it.
- 1:02:51As always thank you so much if you
- 1:02:54have enjoyed the show as i always say do please leave
- 1:02:57a review or a rating um on your preferred
- 1:03:01podcast app it really makes a difference it just helps this information get
- 1:03:04out there when people do a google search um so that'd be really cool if you
- 1:03:07could take time to do that and subscribe to youtube that helps as well it's
- 1:03:10all connected in this getting information out there which is the biggest barrier
- 1:03:13to anything probably to patients as well it's just getting quality information
- 1:03:16out to clinicians so the clinicians can do the great stuff to the patients.
- 1:03:19So you can do your bit and help by helping this quality information get out there.
- 1:03:23We'll be back on Wednesday, like I say, but until then, as always,
- 1:03:26take care of yourselves and each other.