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Writer's pictureDr Mish Grubisa
Feb 17, 20235 min read

Pain Science Made Simple

Updated: Mar 4, 2023

What does your mind and emotional state have to do with chronic pain, illness and physical dis-ease? As the latest science indicates, quite a bit, actually.


The most recent research offers important implications and hopeful advancements for clients suffering from chronic pain, illness and dis-ease, and provides a strong rationale for assessing and treating health symptoms from a bio-psycho-social perspective.


This article is designed to firstly help you better understand the pain response, secondly, explain how pain becomes wired into your brain and nervous system over time and finally how you can teach your body to break the habit.




Pain as a perception


The perception of pain can vary dramatically among individuals. According to a bio-psycho-social model of pain, the perception of painful stimuli are influenced by three main types of factors: biological, psychological, and social factors.


Pain is a sensory and emotional experience. Our body gives us all this information through sight, smell, sound, skin receptors. All of those help formulate your personal experience, and we then determine what that output of pain is going to be. So, pain itself, is very subjective.

Let me explain via an example what this can mean means. If a surgeon cuts his finger, it’s going to be a completely different experience than if a carpenter cuts his finger.


The carpenter more than likely gets a splinter a few times a week when he’s doing timber work, so it’s not that big of a deal. The surgeon, on the other hand, really depends on the fine dexterity of his fingers in order to perform at an optimal level in theatre. So, the cut is perceived as a completely different experience for each of them, even though it’s the same event. Therefore, the outcome of the cut, is based on the importance or significant impact the cut will have in their life.



Clinical example


I was working with a new client Leanne, who was presented with chronic lower back pain and sciatica radiating down her left leg for about 7 years. I had seen her for 2-3 sessions, and I felt there was something deeper going on beneath the surface of her symptoms. I knew that even through we were addressing the biomechanics aspects of her symptoms, I sensed that we weren’t really addressing the root cause of the matter.


So, after reviewing her intake form, I noticed that she mentioned the loss of her husband to a sudden accident 7 yrs ago, which was around the time the pain started. It turns out that 3 months before she injured her back moving some furniture, her husband was killed in a tragic work accident.


Once she felt comfortable sharing her experience with me, we could explore the deeper meaning of what was going on with her pain. She shared with me the initial shock of the incident, the overwhelm that she felt as she would now need to raise their children as a solo parent. Also the fear of not having the financial stability to be able to cope. The anger and frustration that came that her husband left her to deal with life all on her own, as well as the grief and sadness that came with losing her best friends and companion.


All of these feeling are totally normal for anyone that experiences a traumatic event. However, if not addresses, these unacknowledged emotions can get suppressed and manifest in the body as symptoms, illness and disease. When she was ready to let go, we began to safely unpacked her story, and she began to see the a much greater meanings of it all.


The heart of the matter


Simply, just by acknowledging that the pain may be connected to a significant emotional event, was enough for her to start the healing process. In her case, the shock, overwhelm, grief, anger and sadness that she was experiencing, which are all totally natural responses to a significant event, was at the core of her pain.


Initially, this may be a bit to get your head around, however when we start to unpack where it all started, and what it is there to teach us, some pretty profound shifts begin to take place at a physiological level. Literally, the pain and tension melts away. With the acknowledgement, awareness and understanding of the higher meaning of it all, you become armed with a totally new perspective of the pain or illness and begin the process of healing.


Through the process of targeting rewiring, we begin to create new neural pathways, that make the old obsolete and this is what we call neuro- plasticity. The brains ability to change itself.


Right now, Leanne is symptom free, she has returned to her ideal level of activity, she has resumed her daily jogging and gym classes, tending to her gardening and family activities free of pain, and overall her energy and vitality has increased and she is doing really well.


She had been having these sharp nerve pains going down her left leg for years, but to get rid of those, what she now knows, is that there had to be an acceptance and letting go of what was at the root cause of the problem. With a deeper understanding of pain science, as well as and the tools, techniques and support to connect the dots of the puzzle, Leanne was able to allow that to occur. Letting go of the physical pain, in a sense, literally was a letting go of the emotions linked to the passing of her husband, so she could move on with her life with a renewed sense of purpose.


Further Research


It's an exciting time in the world of Mind Body Medicine and the research is providing some exciting and hopeful advancements. What we now know about pain, why we feel it and why it becomes chronic and how it manifests into dis-ease has shifted enormously over the last decade.


Thanks to recent developments in brain imaging technology, researchers now have a lot more evidence based information about how pain is processed as well as the tools and techniques that are effective at rewiring the brain to overcome the pain, illness and disease.


If you are interested in furthering your understanding and knowledge into the latest evidence in Pain Science, I invite you to browse the following journal articles. Scientists are offering some innovative and progressive approaches to overcoming pain, illness and dis-ease based on a more holistic bio-psycho-social model of care.


If any of this article resonated with you and you are ready to let go of what no longer serves you, feel free to reach out.


Online tele-health holistic counselling session with Dr Mish can be made via the link below


Much Love and many warm regards,


Dr Mish and the team @ KWC .................................................................................... Integrative Natural Health, Mind Body Medicine ....................................................................................

Pain Processing in the Human Nervous System: A Selective Review of Nociceptive and Biobehavioral Pathways


A New Era for Mind–Body Medicine


Moss, D., McGrady, A., Davies T.C., and Wickramasekera, I., (Ed.). (2003). Handbook of mind-body medicine for primary care. Sage Publications.


Gilbert, M. D. (2003). Weaving medicine back together: Mind-body medicine in the twenty-first century. Journal of Alternative and complementary Medicine, 9(4), 563-570.










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