The mind f**k of pain — retraining your system to tackle chronic pain

Jun 18, 2025

Lorimer Moseley, a neuroscientist at the University of South Australia, specializes in the fascinating but perplexing nature of pain. He discusses how pain isn't solely tied to physical injuries, revealing the mind's role in chronic pain. Lorimer shares how his own struggles with pain post-injury led him to explore its neuroscience. The conversation dives into the subjective aspects of pain, personal narratives, and the societal stigma surrounding chronic conditions, ultimately advocating for a deeper understanding to improve pain management.

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INSIGHT

Brain's Complex Pain Decision

Pain signals sudden changes in the body detected by nociceptors, which send messages to the central nervous system.
The brain decides whether pain should be produced to protect the body, showing pain is a complex protective feeling, not just a direct response to injury.

ANECDOTE

Snake Bite Pain Paradox

An eastern brown snake bit Lorimer Moseley but he felt only a scratch and no pain initially.
Later, a simple twig scratch caused intense pain due to his brain evaluating context and danger.

ANECDOTE

Severe Injury with No Pain

A man entered A&E with a hammer lodged in his neck yet reported no neck pain.
This shows severe injuries can sometimes produce minimal pain depending on brain interpretation.

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Professor Lorimer Moseley is neuroscientist, who specialises in the complexities and mind-boggling nature of pain - what it is, why it exists, how it works and when it can go wrong.

For most of us, pain is a fundamental part of being alive, and staying alive and yet none of us will ever experience the exact same pain as someone else, which makes it incredibly difficult to understand.

Every day, we stub our toes and burn our tongues. Some of us break bones and suffer from more serious illnesses and conditions.

What you feel when your skin is broken or a ligament is torn is there to tell your brain to be careful, that something is wrong and needs to be protected.

But what happens when doctors can't find any damage? When the tissues in your hips or the pictures of your brain seem perfectly fine, but still, there is agonising pain that refuses to leave you alone?

Lorimer was a physiotherapist who came to this very specific neuroscience after his own experience with chronic pain, following a pretty gruesome sporting injury that by all accounts had been fixed by surgery.

He realised that as he was learning more about how changes in the body are detected (like temperature and pressure), and communicated as pain to the brain through the central nervous system, his own chronic pain started to diminish.

Since then, Lorimer has published hundreds of papers and several books on the topic, in his pursuit to help people also dig themselves out of the hellish cruelty of chronic pain.

Further information

You can find more resources from Professor Moseley about tackling persistent or chronic pain online at TameTheBeast.org

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

The Executive Producer of Conversations in Nicola Harrison. This episode was produced by Meggie Morris and presented by Richard Fidler.

It explores persistent pain, migraine, arthritis, neurology, psychology, distrust of the medical system, pain relief, hypersensitivity to pain, doctors who believe you, chronic conditions, endometriosis.