Join Brent Hedley in discussing One Thing he wants pain researchers or clinicians to know. He challenges clinicians and researchers to truly listen, and to abandon one-size-fits-all approaches.
About Brent
Brent Hedley is a board member for Chronic Pain Australia. You can hear the tables being turned (Brent interviewing Josh) via the podcast that Brent hosts here.
Transcript
Joshua Pate: What is one thing that you want pain researchers or clinicians to know?
Brent Hedley: Essentially, each and every person who manages chronic or persistent pain should be considered an expert in their own pain. I think that’s the key message that I really want to get across today.
We hear language like, “oh, my pain isn’t as bad as you might think it is”, or perhaps “your pain isn’t that bad”, or “it’s bad but it’s not as bad as others”, and I think that sort of that resistance, if you will, to of acknowledgement being vulnerable enough to open up about their pain experience. It can often send I guess, a bit of a clear and really a negative message to others.
To really sort of bring it back to the one point, I think it is that you know nobody understands ourselves better than ourselves. And in that sense, you know, we really should consider ourselves experts in our own pain. And if we take that approach, well, then, yeah, great things can happen.
I think again, it’s just validating that the individual experiences that individuals have. Acknowledged that there’s diverse ways in which people experience and manage pain and we really reinforce, I guess that there isn’t a one size fits all approach. You know, it’s really important that we emphasize the importance of listening and learning from, you know, the unique personal experiences that we all have, and especially so in clinical practice and research.
Joshua Pate: Fascinating! Well, thank you so much for your time. And we look forward to hearing what comes next from your work with Chronic Pain Australia as well. So thanks again.
Brent Hedley: Thanks for having us, Josh, no worries.