Chronic pain treatment in physical therapy requires more than biomechanics. If you're a PT, clinic owner, or rehab leader working with complex pain patients, this episode will help you improve outcomes by shifting from “fixing tissues” to truly person-centered care.
Laura Rathbone, physiotherapist and pain educator, joins us to unpack how philosophy, embodied cognition, and behavior change science reshape how we treat pain in private practice physical therapy. We talk about why believing the patient is non-negotiable, how communication impacts clinical results, and why PTs must level up beyond range-of-motion metrics.
This matters because chronic pain drives burnout, stalled plans of care, poor patient satisfaction, and lost revenue. If you don’t evolve your approach, your outcomes — and your confidence — will suffer. If you do, you build trust, retention, and better long-term results.
00:00 Introduction To Pain Care
04:05 Why Treat Complex Pain
13:58 Understanding Embodied Cognition
18:44 Rethinking Assessment Models
27:28 Communication Is Not Soft
34:42 Multidisciplinary Collaboration
