The information you are about to read was written to provide health care practitioners with an additional tool for educating their patients with pain. Many times I have been asked for a handout to go along with my Overcome Pain, Live Well Again education seminars, and even more times clinicians have asked me if there is something that will help them educate their clients… “without it taking so much time!” Traditionally, pain neurophysiology education takes two to three hours. It is perceived by many as expensive and inefficient, even though the research shows it can be highly beneficial. Much of the information presented in this book draws from knowledge I have gained from Lorimer Moseley and David Butler. These two physiotherapists and educators have provided many original concepts about pain neurophysiology in their excellent book Explain Pain. A number of their ideas are paraphrased here, including the powerful therapeutic question, “How dangerous is this really?”, and the concept of discussing input from the nociceptive system as danger signals. It is imperative that clinicians clearly understand these concepts. We must be able to discuss pain neurophysiology easily with our clients, and make the information relevant to their situation. Any clinician setting out to educate people about pain should own Explain Pain, be intimate with its contents, and have it available for their clients.
