Background/aim: Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a variant of chronic pain and an overarching term for a diverse number of painful and benign conditions of the lower spine. Research has shown that CLBP challenges biomedical explanation and treatments and incurs passive coping strategies. Despite the enduring nature of CLBP there are few longitudinal studies. The aim of this investigation was to gain understandings of any consistencies and changes in the experiences of participants' experiences of living with CLBP. Design: A qualitative, longitudinal IP A research project that explored participants' pain experiences over two years (2005-2007). Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of ten participants recruited from the waiting list of a chronic pain clinic. Each participant was interviewed prior to attendance and twice after treatment. The data were recorded and transcribed accounts were analysed using IPA. Results: The participants foreground the physicality of the pain. Further interpretive work showed that whilst participants emphasised the physicality of their condition they experienced embodied, multidimensional experiences characterised by loss. Most participants' continued to manage their pain within a biomedical model of understanding and behavioural focused coping strategies. In comparison, participants who experienced a period of painlessness due to medical interventions demonstrated a reappraisal of their situation and a trend towards adopting a wider, biopsychosocial understanding accompanied by changing coping strategies. Conclusion: The accounts revealed the relationship between the participants' painful body and self concept. For some participants, a respite from pain paralleled increasing psychosocial coping strategies and a future orientation that reflected changes in illness beliefs in the absence of a formal psychological intervention. In comparison, remaining participants continued to demonstrate a narrow repertoire of coping and loss orientation. Participants' responses to CLBP resonated with the grieving processes of bereaved individuals. Clinical implications are discussed with recommendations for future research.