the experience of activity pacing in chronic pain managementan interpretive phenomenological analysis of outpatient physiotherapists and patients purpose activity pacing ap is widely used to manage chronic pain however recent developments in pain management do not necessarily include ap research has explored the experience of ap for physiotherapists who specialize in chronic pain the innovation of this study is to build on previous research by exploring the experiences of patients and physiotherapists who do not specialize in chronic painmethods we interviewed eight patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain who had used ap and eight physiotherapists working in an outpatient department who had not specialized in chronic pain interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim and interpretative phenomenological analysis ipa were used for analysisresults we present the following themes 1 i have tried everything and have no other place to go 2 ap provides a tangible physical structure that can be used flexibly 3 working to retune the brain to a different way of life 4 retuning the brain can pay off in the end as less is more 5 working hard to connect with patients 6 connecting with patients can be exhausting and 7 the patient needs to be on boardconclusion ap can provide a useful vehicle for psychological change through experiential learning it can support psychological flexibility and is not incompatible with other biopsychosocial approaches