Episode 20: How to cope with pain

What can psychology teach us about dealing with pain?

Our presenter Ginny Smith learns that swearing can have a pain-reducing effect, and puts the theory to the test with an experiment on editor Matthew Warren.

Ginny also hears about how virtual reality could provide a welcome distraction to patients suffering from chronic pain.

Our guests, in order of appearance, are: Dr Richard Stephens, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Keele University, and Dr Sam Hughes, Research Fellow in pain neuroimaging at King's College London.

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Episode credits:

Presented and produced by Ginny Smith, with additional content from Matthew Warren and Sana Suri.

Mixing and editing Jeff Knowler.

PsychCrunch theme music Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler.

Art work Tim Grimshaw.

Download this episode here.

Background reading for this episode:

Managing limb pain using virtual reality: a systematic review of clinical and experimental studies, a paper by Priscilla G Wittkopf and colleagues, is free to access thanks to our sponsors Routledge Psychology.

Research mentioned in this episode includes:

• Swearing as a response to pain
• Swearing as a response to pain-effect of daily swearing frequency
• Swearing as a response to pain: Assessing hypoalgesic effects of novel "swear" words
• Attenuation of capsaicin-induced ongoing pain and secondary hyperalgesia during exposure to an immersive virtual reality environment