Meanings of Pain

Meanings of Pain

Author: Simon van Rysewyk

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-02-07

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 3319490222

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Although pain is widely recognized by clinicians and researchers as an experience, pain is always felt in a patient-specific way rather than experienced for what it objectively is, making perceived meaning important in the study of pain. The book contributors explain why meaning is important in the way that pain is felt and promote the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods to study meanings of pain. For the first time in a book, the study of the meanings of pain is given the attention it deserves. All pain research and medicine inevitably have to negotiate how pain is perceived, how meanings of pain can be described within the fabric of a person’s life and neurophysiology, what factors mediate them, how they interact and change over time, and how the relationship between patient, researcher, and clinician might be understood in terms of meaning. Though meanings of pain are not intensively studied in contemporary pain research or thoroughly described as part of clinical assessment, no pain researcher or clinician can avoid asking questions about how pain is perceived or the types of data and scientific methods relevant in discovering the answers.


Book Synopsis Meanings of Pain by : Simon van Rysewyk

Download or read book Meanings of Pain written by Simon van Rysewyk and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although pain is widely recognized by clinicians and researchers as an experience, pain is always felt in a patient-specific way rather than experienced for what it objectively is, making perceived meaning important in the study of pain. The book contributors explain why meaning is important in the way that pain is felt and promote the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods to study meanings of pain. For the first time in a book, the study of the meanings of pain is given the attention it deserves. All pain research and medicine inevitably have to negotiate how pain is perceived, how meanings of pain can be described within the fabric of a person’s life and neurophysiology, what factors mediate them, how they interact and change over time, and how the relationship between patient, researcher, and clinician might be understood in terms of meaning. Though meanings of pain are not intensively studied in contemporary pain research or thoroughly described as part of clinical assessment, no pain researcher or clinician can avoid asking questions about how pain is perceived or the types of data and scientific methods relevant in discovering the answers.


Meanings of Pain

Meanings of Pain

Author: Simon van Rysewyk

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-08-31

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 3030241548

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Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers.


Book Synopsis Meanings of Pain by : Simon van Rysewyk

Download or read book Meanings of Pain written by Simon van Rysewyk and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-08-31 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers.


The Culture of Pain

The Culture of Pain

Author: David B. Morris

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1991-09-09

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780520913820

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This is a book about the meanings we make out of pain. The greatest surprise I encountered in discussing this topic over the past ten years was the consistency with which I was asked a single unvarying question: Are you writing about physical pain or mental pain? The overwhelming consistency of this response convinces me that modern culture rests upon and underlying belief so strong that it grips us with the force of a founding myth. Call it the Myth of Two Pains. We live in an era when many people believe--as a basic, unexamined foundation of thought--that pain comes divided into separate types: physical and mental. These two types of pain, so the myth goes, are as different as land and sea. You feel physical pain if your arm breaks, and you feel mental pain if your heart breaks. Between these two different events we seem to imagine a gulf so wide and deep that it might as well be filled by a sea that is impossible to navigate.


Book Synopsis The Culture of Pain by : David B. Morris

Download or read book The Culture of Pain written by David B. Morris and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1991-09-09 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about the meanings we make out of pain. The greatest surprise I encountered in discussing this topic over the past ten years was the consistency with which I was asked a single unvarying question: Are you writing about physical pain or mental pain? The overwhelming consistency of this response convinces me that modern culture rests upon and underlying belief so strong that it grips us with the force of a founding myth. Call it the Myth of Two Pains. We live in an era when many people believe--as a basic, unexamined foundation of thought--that pain comes divided into separate types: physical and mental. These two types of pain, so the myth goes, are as different as land and sea. You feel physical pain if your arm breaks, and you feel mental pain if your heart breaks. Between these two different events we seem to imagine a gulf so wide and deep that it might as well be filled by a sea that is impossible to navigate.


Meanings of Pain

Meanings of Pain

Author: Simon van Rysewyk

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-05-17

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 3030958256

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This book, the third and final volume in the Meaning of Pain series, describes what pain means to people with pain in “vulnerable” groups, and how meaning changes pain – and them – over time. Immediate pain warns of harm or injury to the person with pain. If pain persists over time, more complex meanings can become interwoven with this primitive meaning of threat. These cognitive meanings include thoughts and anxiety about the adverse consequences of pain. Such meanings can nourish existential sufferings, which are more about the person than the pain, such as loss, loneliness, or despair. Although chronic pain can affect anyone, there are some groups of people for whom particular clinical support and understanding is urgently needed. This applies to “vulnerable” or “special” groups of people, and to the question of what pain means to them. These groups include children, women, older adults, veterans, addicts, people with mental health problems, homeless people, or people in rural or indigenous communities. Several chapters in the book focus on the lived experience of pain in vulnerable adults, including black older adults in the US, rural Nigerians, US veterans, and adults with acquired brain injury. The question of what pain experience could mean in the defenceless fetus, neonate, pre-term baby, and child, is examined in depth across three contributions. This book series aspires to create a vocabulary on the “meanings of pain” and a clinical framework with which to use it. It is hoped that the series stimulates self-reflection about the role of meaning in optimal pain management. Meanings of Pain is intended for people with pain, family members or caregivers of people with pain, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. Volume I was published in 2016; Volume II in 2019.


Book Synopsis Meanings of Pain by : Simon van Rysewyk

Download or read book Meanings of Pain written by Simon van Rysewyk and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, the third and final volume in the Meaning of Pain series, describes what pain means to people with pain in “vulnerable” groups, and how meaning changes pain – and them – over time. Immediate pain warns of harm or injury to the person with pain. If pain persists over time, more complex meanings can become interwoven with this primitive meaning of threat. These cognitive meanings include thoughts and anxiety about the adverse consequences of pain. Such meanings can nourish existential sufferings, which are more about the person than the pain, such as loss, loneliness, or despair. Although chronic pain can affect anyone, there are some groups of people for whom particular clinical support and understanding is urgently needed. This applies to “vulnerable” or “special” groups of people, and to the question of what pain means to them. These groups include children, women, older adults, veterans, addicts, people with mental health problems, homeless people, or people in rural or indigenous communities. Several chapters in the book focus on the lived experience of pain in vulnerable adults, including black older adults in the US, rural Nigerians, US veterans, and adults with acquired brain injury. The question of what pain experience could mean in the defenceless fetus, neonate, pre-term baby, and child, is examined in depth across three contributions. This book series aspires to create a vocabulary on the “meanings of pain” and a clinical framework with which to use it. It is hoped that the series stimulates self-reflection about the role of meaning in optimal pain management. Meanings of Pain is intended for people with pain, family members or caregivers of people with pain, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. Volume I was published in 2016; Volume II in 2019.


Pain

Pain

Author: Daniel M. Doleys

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0199331537

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Despite the proliferation of pain clinics and various pain-oriented therapies, there is an absence of data supporting any substantial change in the statistics regarding the incidence, development and persistence of pain. As renowned pain clinician and scientist Daniel M. Doleys argues, there may be a need for a fundamental shift in the way we view pain. In this thoughtful work, Doleys presents the evolving concept and complex nature of pain with the intention of promoting a broadening of the existing paradigm within which pain is viewed and understood. Combining neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy of science, this book reviews the history of pain and outlines the current concepts and theories regarding the mechanisms involved in the experience of pain. Experimental and clinical research in a broad array of areas including neonatal pain, empathy and pain, psychogenic pain, and genetics and pain is summarized. The notion of pain as a disease process rather than a symptom is highlighted. Although there is a continued interest in activation of the peripheral nociceptive system as a determining factor in the experience of pain, the growing appreciation for the brain as the intimate 'pain generator' is emphasized. The definition of consciousness and conscious awareness and a theory as to how it relates to nociceptive processing is discussed. Finally, the author describes the potential benefit of incorporating some of the concepts from systems and quantum theory into our thinking about pain. The area of pain research and treatment seems on the precipice of change. This work intends to provide a glimpse of what these changes might be in the context of where pain research and therapy has come from, where it currently is, and where it might be headed.


Book Synopsis Pain by : Daniel M. Doleys

Download or read book Pain written by Daniel M. Doleys and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the proliferation of pain clinics and various pain-oriented therapies, there is an absence of data supporting any substantial change in the statistics regarding the incidence, development and persistence of pain. As renowned pain clinician and scientist Daniel M. Doleys argues, there may be a need for a fundamental shift in the way we view pain. In this thoughtful work, Doleys presents the evolving concept and complex nature of pain with the intention of promoting a broadening of the existing paradigm within which pain is viewed and understood. Combining neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy of science, this book reviews the history of pain and outlines the current concepts and theories regarding the mechanisms involved in the experience of pain. Experimental and clinical research in a broad array of areas including neonatal pain, empathy and pain, psychogenic pain, and genetics and pain is summarized. The notion of pain as a disease process rather than a symptom is highlighted. Although there is a continued interest in activation of the peripheral nociceptive system as a determining factor in the experience of pain, the growing appreciation for the brain as the intimate 'pain generator' is emphasized. The definition of consciousness and conscious awareness and a theory as to how it relates to nociceptive processing is discussed. Finally, the author describes the potential benefit of incorporating some of the concepts from systems and quantum theory into our thinking about pain. The area of pain research and treatment seems on the precipice of change. This work intends to provide a glimpse of what these changes might be in the context of where pain research and therapy has come from, where it currently is, and where it might be headed.


Pain and Disability

Pain and Disability

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1987-01-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0309037379

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Painâ€"it is the most common complaint presented to physicians. Yet pain is subjectiveâ€"it cannot be measured directly and is difficult to validate. Evaluating claims based on pain poses major problems for the Social Security Administration (SSA) and other disability insurers. This volume covers the epidemiology and physiology of pain; psychosocial contributions to pain and illness behavior; promising ways of assessing and measuring chronic pain and dysfunction; clinical aspects of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation; and how the SSA's benefit structure and administrative procedures may affect pain complaints.


Book Synopsis Pain and Disability by : Institute of Medicine

Download or read book Pain and Disability written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1987-01-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Painâ€"it is the most common complaint presented to physicians. Yet pain is subjectiveâ€"it cannot be measured directly and is difficult to validate. Evaluating claims based on pain poses major problems for the Social Security Administration (SSA) and other disability insurers. This volume covers the epidemiology and physiology of pain; psychosocial contributions to pain and illness behavior; promising ways of assessing and measuring chronic pain and dysfunction; clinical aspects of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation; and how the SSA's benefit structure and administrative procedures may affect pain complaints.


The Story of Pain

The Story of Pain

Author: Joanna Bourke

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 0199689423

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Everyone knows what is feels like to be in pain. Scraped knees, toothaches, migraines, giving birth, cancer, heart attacks, and heartaches: pain permeates our entire lives. We also witness other people - loved ones - suffering, and we 'feel with' them. It is easy to assume this is the end of the story: 'pain-is-pain-is-pain', and that is all there is to say. But it is not. In fact, the way in which people respond to what they describe as 'painful' has changed considerably over time. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, people believed that pain served a specific (and positive) function - it was a message from God or Nature; it would perfect the spirit. 'Suffer in this life and you wouldn't suffer in the next one'. Submission to pain was required. Nothing could be more removed from twentieth and twenty-first century understandings, where pain is regarded as an unremitting evil to be 'fought'. Focusing on the English-speaking world, this book tells the story of pain since the eighteenth century, addressing fundamental questions about the experience and nature of suffering over the last three centuries. How have those in pain interpreted their suffering - and how have these interpretations changed over time? How have people learnt to conduct themselves when suffering? How do friends and family react? And what about medical professionals: should they immerse themselves in the suffering person or is the best response a kind of professional detachment? As Joanna Bourke shows in this fascinating investigation, people have come up with many different answers to these questions over time. And a history of pain can tell us a great deal about how we might respond to our own suffering in the present - and, just as importantly, to the suffering of those around us.


Book Synopsis The Story of Pain by : Joanna Bourke

Download or read book The Story of Pain written by Joanna Bourke and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone knows what is feels like to be in pain. Scraped knees, toothaches, migraines, giving birth, cancer, heart attacks, and heartaches: pain permeates our entire lives. We also witness other people - loved ones - suffering, and we 'feel with' them. It is easy to assume this is the end of the story: 'pain-is-pain-is-pain', and that is all there is to say. But it is not. In fact, the way in which people respond to what they describe as 'painful' has changed considerably over time. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, people believed that pain served a specific (and positive) function - it was a message from God or Nature; it would perfect the spirit. 'Suffer in this life and you wouldn't suffer in the next one'. Submission to pain was required. Nothing could be more removed from twentieth and twenty-first century understandings, where pain is regarded as an unremitting evil to be 'fought'. Focusing on the English-speaking world, this book tells the story of pain since the eighteenth century, addressing fundamental questions about the experience and nature of suffering over the last three centuries. How have those in pain interpreted their suffering - and how have these interpretations changed over time? How have people learnt to conduct themselves when suffering? How do friends and family react? And what about medical professionals: should they immerse themselves in the suffering person or is the best response a kind of professional detachment? As Joanna Bourke shows in this fascinating investigation, people have come up with many different answers to these questions over time. And a history of pain can tell us a great deal about how we might respond to our own suffering in the present - and, just as importantly, to the suffering of those around us.


Recognition and Alleviation of Pain and Distress in Laboratory Animals

Recognition and Alleviation of Pain and Distress in Laboratory Animals

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0309042755

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Clear guidelines on the proper care and use of laboratory animals are being sought by researchers and members of the many committees formed to oversee animal care at universities as well as the general public. This book provides a comprehensive overview of what we know about behavior, pain, and distress in laboratory animals. The volume explores: Stressors in the laboratory and the animal behaviors they cause, including in-depth discussions of the physiology of pain and distress and the animal's ecological relationship to the laboratory as an environment. A review of euthanasia of lab animals-exploring the decision, the methods, and the emotional effects on technicians. Also included is a highly practical, extensive listing, by species, of dosages and side effects of anesthetics, analgesics, and tranquilizers.


Book Synopsis Recognition and Alleviation of Pain and Distress in Laboratory Animals by : National Research Council

Download or read book Recognition and Alleviation of Pain and Distress in Laboratory Animals written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clear guidelines on the proper care and use of laboratory animals are being sought by researchers and members of the many committees formed to oversee animal care at universities as well as the general public. This book provides a comprehensive overview of what we know about behavior, pain, and distress in laboratory animals. The volume explores: Stressors in the laboratory and the animal behaviors they cause, including in-depth discussions of the physiology of pain and distress and the animal's ecological relationship to the laboratory as an environment. A review of euthanasia of lab animals-exploring the decision, the methods, and the emotional effects on technicians. Also included is a highly practical, extensive listing, by species, of dosages and side effects of anesthetics, analgesics, and tranquilizers.


Meanings of Pain

Meanings of Pain

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9783030241551

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Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. "It is my opinion that this ... work will stand as the definitive reference work in this field. I believe it will enrich the professional and personal lives of health care providers, researchers and people who have persistent pain and their family members. The combination of framework chapters with chapters devoted to analysing the lived experience of pain conditions gives the requisite breadth and depth to the subject."--Dr Marc A. Russo, MBBS DA(UK) FANZCA FFPMANZCA, Newcastle, Australia, from the Foreword.


Book Synopsis Meanings of Pain by :

Download or read book Meanings of Pain written by and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. "It is my opinion that this ... work will stand as the definitive reference work in this field. I believe it will enrich the professional and personal lives of health care providers, researchers and people who have persistent pain and their family members. The combination of framework chapters with chapters devoted to analysing the lived experience of pain conditions gives the requisite breadth and depth to the subject."--Dr Marc A. Russo, MBBS DA(UK) FANZCA FFPMANZCA, Newcastle, Australia, from the Foreword.


Encountering Pain

Encountering Pain

Author: Deborah Padfield

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2021-02-15

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 1787352633

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What is persistent pain? How do we communicate pain, not only in words but in visual images and gesture? How do we respond to the pain of another, and can we do it better? Can explaining how pain works help us handle it? This unique compilation of voices addresses these and bigger questions. Defined as having lasted over three months, persistent pain changes the brain and nervous system so pain no longer warns of danger: it seems to be a fault in the system. It is a major cause of disability globally, but it remains difficult to communicate, a problem both to those with pain and those who try to help. Language struggles to bridge the gap, and it raises ethical challenges in its management unlike those of other common conditions. Encountering Pain shares leading research into the potential value of visual images and non-verbal forms of communication as means of improving clinician–patient interaction. It is divided into four sections: hearing, seeing, speaking, and a final series of contributions on the future for persistent pain. The chapters are accompanied by vivid photographs co-created with those who live with pain. The volume integrates the voices of leading scientists, academics and contemporary artists with poetry and poignant personal testimonies to provide a manual for understanding the meanings of pain, for healthcare professionals, pain patients, students, academics and artists. The voices and experiences of those living with pain are central, providing tools for discussion and future research, shifting register between creative, academic and personal contributions from diverse cultures and weaving them together to offer new understanding, knowledge and hope.


Book Synopsis Encountering Pain by : Deborah Padfield

Download or read book Encountering Pain written by Deborah Padfield and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2021-02-15 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is persistent pain? How do we communicate pain, not only in words but in visual images and gesture? How do we respond to the pain of another, and can we do it better? Can explaining how pain works help us handle it? This unique compilation of voices addresses these and bigger questions. Defined as having lasted over three months, persistent pain changes the brain and nervous system so pain no longer warns of danger: it seems to be a fault in the system. It is a major cause of disability globally, but it remains difficult to communicate, a problem both to those with pain and those who try to help. Language struggles to bridge the gap, and it raises ethical challenges in its management unlike those of other common conditions. Encountering Pain shares leading research into the potential value of visual images and non-verbal forms of communication as means of improving clinician–patient interaction. It is divided into four sections: hearing, seeing, speaking, and a final series of contributions on the future for persistent pain. The chapters are accompanied by vivid photographs co-created with those who live with pain. The volume integrates the voices of leading scientists, academics and contemporary artists with poetry and poignant personal testimonies to provide a manual for understanding the meanings of pain, for healthcare professionals, pain patients, students, academics and artists. The voices and experiences of those living with pain are central, providing tools for discussion and future research, shifting register between creative, academic and personal contributions from diverse cultures and weaving them together to offer new understanding, knowledge and hope.