“Is pain an illusion?” asks London Osteopath Robin Kiashek

I came cross this video on YouTube recently, which talks about pain and how it manifests itself physically and mentally. It’s by a guy called Lorimer Moseley, a clinical neuroscientist, seeking to explain ‘Why Things Hurt’. Please check it out…

As an Osteopath working in both Central London and North London, I deal with people’s pain every day, so I’m really interested in this sort of subject. Within the video, several points are made, in an entertaining and memorable way, and the presenter explains in simple terms how the physical body conveys messages to the brain about pain and how the brain responds.

A central question here is how one convinces someone in pain that, we understand that they are in pain, but that it’s not just about the physical, it’s also about the mental. In other words, pain is an output of the brain, designed to protect you, as Lorimer cleverly says in the video. Pain is a construct of the brain.

A further interesting point here is described as when pain persists, it’s a sign that the brain is effectively over protecting you. When pain spreads, it because the brain is being less specific and intensifying pain to help you more, so to control pain, we must understand this conversation that the physical body is having with the brain, in order to truly help people who are in pain. Interesting stuff…