Thanks for the examples Barrett, this does help make things clearer. I have included a quote in my last response. Please take my use of "quotes" as meaning; perhaps/a postulated thought or many; of me; etc. not a dig or direct response to your words. I am simply not necessarily saying I agree or disagree with the words I am writing when I put "" around them. I am just offer up thought for comment.

By this do you mean that we plan and willfully move with volition in this manner when stimulated painfully?
I don't think we necessarily plan it, but we have learned it and I believe it is conscious and under our control. Mechanical deformation is as you say mechanical deformation, I am not trying to separate it but rather postulate is pain merely the symptom? Are with withdrawing from the symptom or the deformation/stretch/increase in threshold stimulus.

I think I can see your point now by your last sentence:

When the instinctive response to such a situation is suppressed therapists should come to understand how that is possible,
Is it that as a therapist we should seek to understand how to ignore pain and get on with it? Surely the pain does not go away, we simply decide that it is neither the time nor the place to do anything about it and just ride it out. Should we teach this to our patients as a first measure while trying to figure out in the medium term why the mechanical deformation is causing pain in apparently normal tissue?

I am a big supporter of normal movement and symmetry promoting normal tissue function and, in the absence of inflammation, thereafter a reduction in pain. Perhaps if you could really say what you are postulating, in simple terms, that therapists should do as a result of your current understanding. I suppose I am trying to add my general thoughts via a few words but might be missing your point like a few others above.
:hat