The Social Dimensions of Pain: Understanding their Power and Pitfalls in Clinical Interventions and Outcomes

Dr. Lumley's primary scholarly interests are on emotions, stress, and physical health. Much of the research that he, his students, and colleagues conduct involves developing and testing emotion-focused interventions to reduce stress and improve health. For example, in numerous studies, they have examined the effects of written or verbal emotional disclosure. More recently, they have developed and tested "Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy" (EAET) for people who have primary pain conditions, such as fibromyalgia, headaches, chronic musculoskeletal pain, irritable bowel syndrome and pelvic pain.

Dr. Meulders is Associate Professor of Experimental Health Psychology at the UM Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience and visiting professor at KU Leuven. She is an experimental psychologist and pain scientist with extensive expertise in learning theory and laboratory conditioning models. Her research has focused on the psychological mechanisms in the transition from acute to chronic pain, and particularly, on learning processes in pain-related fear and avoidance behavior, and more recently, on how social factors may influence these learning processes. Her research group develops and employs sophisticated experimental, ecologically valid, and clinically relevant paradigms (robotic-arm operant avoidance paradigm) and novel techniques (VR) both in healthy volunteers and clinical populations, to increase fundamental knowledge about these learning processes to ultimately promote treatment innovation and tackle pain-related disability.

Associate Professor Fereshteh Pourkazemi is a researcher, artists, a clinical physiotherapist with over 18 years of experience and a leading academic within the Discipline of Physiotherapy at The University of Sydney. She is internationally recognised for reshaping models of chronic ankle instability management, integrating her expertise in chronic pain assessment and management into this field. A/Prof Pourkazemi currently leads multidisciplinary projects exploring innovative social interventions (including arts) for managing chronic pain and other chronic health conditions. As an educator, she holds the Senior Fellowship of Advanced Higher Education, and recently (2021-23) led the development of the Doctor of Physiotherapy (DPT) program at The University of Sydney. 

Mr. Taverner has lived experience with numerous chronic conditions, including Fibromyalgia, Functional Neurological Disorder, Arthritis, Prinzmetal Angina, Anxiety, Depression and Glaucoma. And cooking is his go to therapy!  

Ian now provides cooking demos, talks, classes and programmes to numerous Charities, Hopsitals, Organisations and Expo Events all over the world, championing accessible, repeatable and enjoyable cooking

Dr. Hirsh is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Indiana University Indianapolis and Director of the Pain Research Laboratory. He received his PhD in Clinical & Health Psychology from the University of Florida and completed postdoctoral training in rehabilitation research at the University of Washington School of Medicine. His laboratory examines how individual-level factors (e.g., biology, cognition, emotions) interact with interpersonal and socio-contextual factors (e.g., cultural heritage, social class, relationship status) to influence the experience of and judgments about pain. These research findings are then used to develop, test, and implement interventions to enhance equity and outcomes in pain care.

Associate Professor Tasha Stanton leads the Persistent Pain Research Group at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and is co-Director of IIMPACT in Health at The University of South Australia, Adelaide. She is a clinical pain neuroscientist, with original training as a physiotherapist. Her research group works closely with consumers and with clinicians to identify real-world problems and devise new solutions. She has a specific interest in chronic pain, osteoarthritis, pain science education, and novel technologies, such as virtual and mediated reality, to enhance exercise engagement.