Imagining My Painful Hand Is Not Mine: Self-Distancing Relieves Experimental Acute Pain Induced by a Cold Pressor Task

Abstract Self-distancing has been shown to alleviate emotional pain and to have potential efficacy for treating chronic pain and imagined acute pain, relative to self-immersing. This study examined the efficacy of self-distancing in relieving acute physical pain caused by a cold pressor task (CPT) in healthy adults. A total of 65 undergraduates were assigned pseudorandomly to 1 of 3 groups: 1) a self-distancing group, in which participants were instructed to “take a step back” to simulate their current painful experience as an observer, 2) a self-immersed group, in which participants’ current painful experience was stimulated from the egocentric perspective, and 3) a control group, in which participants coped with pains in their spontaneous ways. Three key sessions were included in the present experiment: the pretest CPT, the perspective training (instead of rest in the control group), and the posttest CPT. The participants were to adopt the designated perspective only during the posttest CPT. The results showed that 1) maintaining a self-distanced perspective while experiencing pain decreased the sensation of pain, relative to the self-immersed group and the control group; and (2) compared with the control group, maintaining a self-immersed perspective neither alleviated nor aggravated the pain. This result supports that self-distancing could relieve the acute pain induced by CPT. Perspective: This study presents a brief effective psychological intervention to manage acute pain. This result could potentially have clinical and everyday importance.