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.