Speaker: Dr Sue Peacock
We’re delighted to continue our OUPS Webinar Series with an engaging session exploring the psychology of pain and how psychological approaches can help transform the way people experience it. This talk is ideal for anyone interested in health psychology, neuroscience, mental wellbeing, or the complex relationship between mind and body.
Pain is never just a physical sensation; it is a deeply personal experience shaped by emotion, attention, memory, and the meanings people attach to their symptoms. Contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research consistently shows that these factors do not simply colour the pain experience - they actively influence its intensity, persistence, and impact on daily life.
In this talk, Dr Sue Peacock will bring the science of pain to life by exploring how the brain interprets threat, how expectations and past experiences shape perception, and how unhelpful beliefs can quietly amplify distress. By focusing on the whole person rather than the symptom alone, we begin to understand why pain varies so widely between individuals.
Sue will also discuss practical psychological strategies that can help ease suffering and restore a sense of agency. Approaches such as cognitive reframing, focused attention techniques, hypnosis, and behaviour change interventions will be explored, alongside clinical examples demonstrating how small shifts in thinking and emotion can lead to meaningful improvements in pain.
Rather than viewing pain solely as a physical problem to be endured, psychology offers ways of understanding and influencing the experience itself. By the end of the session, participants will have a clearer understanding of how evidence-informed psychological interventions can help people move from feeling overwhelmed by their pain to feeling more in control of it.
2nd Dec 19.00 - 20.20
Microsoft Webinar Series: Pain, Perception, and Possibility | OUPS