I came across an interesting article written by Associate Professor in Social Psychology, Naomi Eisenberger, who works in the Department of Psychology at the University of California in LA.  Naomi asks a single question which I feel is so applicable to clinical practice as a physiotherapist "Why is it that negative emotions have such a profound effect on our emotional wellbeing?" This blog summaries the key points I learnt from reading her paper "The pain of social disconnection: examining the shared neural underpinnings of physical and social pain". Using this article and an example of a runner' tibial stress fracture, I explore the overlap between social and physical pain, describe how the distress of social disconnection outweighed the physical pain of the injury and how we strategised ways to manage the injury together.