How To Reassure Patients with Ian Cowell

Reassurance is included in clinical practice guidelines acrosshealthcare and is usually a part of any assessment. Yet, very little research and guidance existed on how to go about doing it.

But there has been recent new research that suggests whatdoes (and doesn’t) work when trying to reassure those with chronic low back pain, which could be applied across many other conditions.

On this episode Ben is joined by the lead author Ian Cowell.Clinician, Educator & Researcher with the Evolve Pain Academy/Cognitive Functional Therapy group. Where they discuss;

(00:00:00) – Introduction

(00:00:51) - Reaction To Ian’s New Published Paper

(00:03:00) - Why Hasn’t There Been Much Published OnReassurance?

(00:05:07) - Where Did Attempted Reassurance Go Wrong?

(00:07:37) - Asking or Responding To Concerns

(00:20:33) - The Importance Of Non-Verbal Communication

(00:21:54) - What Allowed Reassurance To Go Well

(00:29:58) - Using Behavioural Experiments For Reassurance

(00:38:03) - Managing Patient Beliefs

(00:42:07) - What To Do When Behavioural Experiments Don’t Go To Plan

(00:44:27) - What Cues Did Clinicians Miss?

(00:53:13) - Who Doesn’t Cognitive Functional Therapy Work For?

(00:58:15)- Is Persistent Pain Research Becoming MorePositive?

(01:00:39) - Ian’s Hardest Clinical Conversations

(01:05:07) - Could This All Be Applied Across Healthcare InGeneral?

Ian’s New Reassurance Paper:

“A Detailed Analysis of How Physiotherapists "Give" Reassurance for Patients' Concerns in Back Pain Consultations” – Cowell et al (2025).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40455078/