A Practical Guide for
Persistent Pain Therapy

“This course will fundamentally change how I
communicate with my patients.” Doctor

“I connect with my patients so much better since taking this course.”

Physiotherapist
Learning Aims:

This course will help you develop a range of engaging, practical skills so that
you can help people make sense of pain and overcome it. You will learn ways

to apply practical solutions to everyday clinical challenges.
 Help people to feel believed by understanding the relationship
between pain, perception & behaviour change without them thinking

that it’s “all in their head!”

 Learn ways to combine a biopsychosocial approach with your

manual therapy and exercise therapy skills.

 Learn creative ways to help people make sense of pain by using
interactive experiments involving taste, touch and hearing!
 Become a better teacher. Guide people who become stuck, empower
people who feel hopeless, and engage people who feel bored.
 Optimise patient education by expanding your teaching toolkit &

applying educational theories to your practice.

 Help people to express their experience of living with pain through
a range of engaging and empowering communication skills.
 Explore the role of metaphors in healthcare and understand the
hidden impact of language on clinical outcomes.

 Integrate practical psychological treatment skills into your rehabilitation
by exploring motivational interviewing, cognitive-behavioural
therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, mindfulness and

cognitive bias modification.

 Explore a variety of patient case studies that give you the opportunity
to use what you have learnt before returning to your clinic.

Course Description:

The challenge of successfully managing persistent pain can be one of the
most daunting for both clinicians and people in pain who are often frustrated
after failed short-term interventions. It is often difficult to understand and
explain high and prolonged levels of pain where a traditional tissue based
cause is lacking. This course explores a cutting edge, patient centered
approach using a variety of practical learning methods to help your patients
make sense and overcome their pain. It provides a range of practical
applications and innovative learning methods to take into your clinic for
immediate results. The course content blends a wide range of contemporary
evidence from both educational and healthcare literature. Know Pain courses
have been taught in over fifteen countries and have provided a wide range of
clinicians around the world with practical skills. Feedback from over 700

people who have attended Know Pain courses has shown that 100% would
recommend a Know Pain course to their colleagues, whilst 95% felt more
confident when helping people to overcome pain. This 2 day practical course
is relevant to anyone who works with people in pain.

Course Outline:

Day 1

Setting the Scene: What is pain? What are we hoping to achieve?
The Neurobiology of Pain: Helping people understand why it hurts in

their own words.

Developing Teaching Skills: Optimise your patient education toolkit &
learn practical ways to guide, empower & engage people.

Day 2

The Language of Pain: Develop your communication skills & help people

to express their experience of living with pain.

Pain & the Affective Mind: Combining psychological treatment skills with

physical rehabilitation and manual therapy.

Getting Going Again: Empowering function by applying pacing & graded

exposure therapy to your practice.

Case Studies: An opportunity to test what you have learnt before you
return to your practice. Use a variety of real life patient case studies to

practice your new skills!

Tutor: Mike Stewart
MCSP SRP MSc PG Cert (Clin Ed)

Mike is a physiotherapist, researcher and visiting university lecturer with over
twenty years experience of helping people to overcome pain. Mike is a
dedicated practice-based educator who is passionate about providing
evidence-based education to a wide variety of health professionals. He
teaches across elite sports, and is an advisor on pain management to the
International Olympic Committee. Mike has a Masters degree in Education
and is planning a PhD focusing on pain and communication. His published
work has received international praise from the leading names in
neuroscience.