With this perspective paper, we aim to raise awareness of and offer starting points for studying the role of emotions and associated behavioural responses to losses in relation to phase-outs. We start from a psychological perspective and explain how losses due to phasing out dominant practices, structures, and cultures may threaten core psychological needs and lead to - what we introduce as - ‘transition pain’. We borrow insights from the psychological coping literature to explain that different forms of transition pain may elicit characteristic coping responses (e.g. opposition, escape, negotiation), shaping individual meaning-making and behaviour in ongoing sustainability transitions. We then expand this psychological lens and present three additional perspectives, namely, that transition pain is (1) dynamic and process-dependent, (2) collectively shared and socially conditioned, and (3) political. We discuss how a ‘coping with transition pain’ lens can contribute to a better understanding of individual and collective meaning-making, behaviour and agency in transitions as well as a more emotion-sensitive governance of phase-outs.