Clinical pain neuroscientist Dr Tasha Stanton: Why chronic pain is like a bilby in a bathtub

Clinical pain neuroscientist Dr Tasha Stanton explains her studies into the power of the mind when it comes to coping with injury and illness.Clinical pain neuroscientist, Dr Tasha Stanton works with people who experience chronic and crushing pain at the University of South Australia.Typically, her patients suffer from osteo-arthritis and back pain.Tasha says that far from being only the result of injury or illness, pain is influenced by many different factors in our lives — emotional turbulence, stressful jobs, or a lack of previous movement.She wants to change the story around pain, and give people back their mobility and their zest for life.She aims to do this by challenging the messages in the brain related to pain and movement.Tasha does this in different ways, one of which involves showing people elongated images of their fingers and knees.To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.