A practical guide to persistent pain therapy

Roleplay 5 - Dark corner

Discover a powerful mental exercise that shows why rushing to escape pain and distress can leave you feeling stuck, discouraged, and hurt again. Learn how small, steady steps can build confidence, reduce overwhelm, and guide you toward real progress.

Mike Stewart webinar Q&A

What is pain?

Discover a practical, patient-centered approach to pain that moves beyond quick fixes and outdated beliefs. Learn how better communication, powerful metaphors, and simple teaching strategies can help people truly understand pain, reduce fear, and create meaningful change.

Must an injury always hurt?

Pain isn’t a simple signal from injured tissues—it’s the brain’s interpretation of many competing messages. Through striking real-life examples and practical clinical insights, learners discover why injury and pain don’t always match, and how better communication can transform understanding.

Communication with patients in pain

Learn a more human way to talk about pain that helps people feel believed, understood, and involved. Through powerful stories and practical examples, you’ll discover how shared experiences, careful language, and real connection can transform difficult conversations.

Experiential learning

Learn how to spot and explore patients’ metaphors to unlock more meaningful conversations and practical solutions in physiotherapy. You’ll also discover how experiential learning—through doing, feeling, watching, and thinking—can help patients move beyond treatment hunting and create lasting change.

Language of pain

Explore how people often treat pain like an attacking enemy—and why fighting harder can keep them stuck. Through playful role play and vivid metaphors, learners discover new ways to shift fear, rethink pain, and open the door to meaningful change.

Bodies work like large companies

Discover simple, relatable ways to explain protective muscle spasm and pain sensitivity, using everyday examples like a parent pulling a child from danger. Learn how the brain and body work together as a protective system, and how these metaphors can help patients make sense of their symptoms.

Roleplay 2 - Are you saying it is in my head?

Chronic pain can feel even harder when others doubt what you’re going through. Discover a powerful, simple way to understand why pain is real, how attention can change what your body feels, and how that insight can help you feel seen, believed, and less alone.

Pain as a threat response

Discover how pain is shaped by perceived threat, context, and expectation—not just injury itself. Through striking examples and simple stories, learners see why understanding fear, beliefs, and the right rehabilitation approach can transform recovery.

Education is therapy

Discover how pain can spiral through fear, avoidance, and misunderstanding—and why education, reassurance, and meaningful movement can help people regain control. You’ll learn practical ways to challenge unhelpful beliefs, build confidence, and support recovery with empathy and clarity.

Roleplay 1 - Hearing perception

Discover why pain can persist long after an injury has healed, and how your brain, nervous system, and sense of threat shape what you feel. Through simple, relatable examples, you’ll see how context can amplify or reduce pain in powerful ways.

Roleplay 3 - Patient generated metaphores

Discover how a simple “too much on my plate” metaphor can turn overwhelm into practical action. Learners will see how playful questioning helps identify small, realistic ways to reduce pressure, make time, and build helpful daily habits.

Roleplay 4 - Finger trap

When pain becomes overwhelming, constantly chasing new fixes can leave you feeling more trapped and frustrated. Through a simple hands-on experiment, learners discover why fighting harder often backfires—and how understanding pain, relaxing, and trying a different approach can open the way forward.

Roleplay 6 - Boss

Discover how pain, IBS, and stress can be connected through the nervous system, and why symptoms may spread when the body feels under constant pressure. Using a simple “boss and departments” analogy, you’ll learn how movement and rebuilding confidence can help calm pain and restore function.

Roleplay 7 - Parent

Learn why pain and stiffness after doing too much aren’t always signs of damage, but often your body’s way of trying to protect you. Discover how a gradual, “to it, not through it” approach can help you stay active with more confidence and less fear.