The Psychology of Pain: Past, Present, and Future

Sponsored by the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation Lectureship Dr. Keefe is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center, a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, and a member of the Cancer Prevention, Detection, and Control Program of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Keefe is Director of the Duke Pain Prevention and Treatment Research Program, an active clinical research program concerned with the behavioral assessment and treatment of patients having acute and persistent pain. Dr. Keefe played a key role in the development of clinical pain services and pain research programs at Duke Medical Center. For 20 years he directed the Pain Management Program and was a leader in the development of Duke Medical Center's multidisciplinary pain programs (both out-patient and in-patient.) Dr. Keefe has developed and refined a number of treatment protocols for persistent pain conditions (e.g. cancer, arthritis) including spouse and partner-assisted pain coping skills training interventions. He has conducted a number of randomized clinical trials testing the efficacy of these and other behavioral interventions (e.g. aerobic exercise protocols, yoga based interventions, mindfulness-based interventions, forgiveness-based interventions, loving kindness meditation, and emotional disclosure). Dr. Keefe has served on numerous study sections and has chaired two NIH study sections (BMIO, PRDP). Dr. Keefe has published over 490 papers, as well as 60 book chapters, and three (3) books on topics ranging from pain during mammography to the assessment and treatment of cancer pain at end of life. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal PAIN, the leading journal in the field of pain research from 2010 to 2020. In 2012 he was awarded the John D. Loeser award for excellence in clinical pain research by the International Association for the Study of Pain. In 2024, he received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Applications of Psychology.