Like Mind, Like Body Pain Science Made Simple (Jim Heafner, PT, DPT, OCS)
Aug 15, 2018
Jim Heafner, DPT, OCS, a Colorado physical therapist and author who explains pain with simple analogies. He discusses how pain is a learned brain habit shaped by context, imaging, and emotions. He explains why repetition, belief, and mental rehearsal matter and why easy, graded movement and clear education can help rewire pain.
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Pain Is A Perception
- Pain is a sensory and emotional experience shaped by context and meaning.
- The same injury can produce very different pain depending on life importance and perception.
Grief Hidden Inside Chronic Back Pain
- A woman carried eight years of low back pain linked to her husband's death.
- Once the loss was addressed alongside therapy, she returned to running and improved markedly.
Internal 'Wrinkles' Don’t Equal Pain
- Internal 'wrinkles' like degeneration are normal age changes and don't reliably cause pain.
- Imaging often shows incidental findings that can mislead patients about cause.
