151: How do social factors impact pain?

About this episode

This episode explores how social factors impact the onset, experience, and treatment of pain.

This episode of Airing Pain explores how social factors impact the onset, experience and treatment of pain. …understanding how things like your thoughts, your fears, your social interactions influence your biology can be really, really powerful… …you're not just dealing with the pain, you're holding it in for everyone else… …we normalise, and even celebrate, different types of pain for different genders… Can stress cause chronic pain? The research, explained… with Cormac Ryan, Professor of Clinical Rehabilitation at Teesside University. What can pain do to relationships? What can relationships do to pain? Pain masking, social withdrawal, the power of attunement… with Rebecca Pearson, Professor of Developmental Psychology and Epidemiology at Manchester Metropolitan University. How do sex and gender affect pain? Sex hormones, gender identity, social modelling… with Katelynn Boerner, Assistant Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of British Columbia. Thanks go to: The British Pain Society – the interviews in this episode were recorded at their 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting. If you have any feedback about Airing Pain, you can leave us a review via our Airing…

People in this episode

Guests: Cormac Ryan, Rebecca Pearson, Katelynn Boerner

Topics covered

• social factors
• pain
• chronic pain
• relationships
• gender
• stress

Keywords

• thoughts
• fears
• social interactions
• biology
• pain masking
• social withdrawal
• attunement
• sex hormones
• gender identity
• social modelling

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Airing Pain

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