BookSimon van Rysewyk, editor.
Summary: 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.
Contents:
Intro; Foreword; Contents;
Chapter 1: Exploring the Meanings of Pain: My Pain Story; 1 Introduction; 2 My Pain Story; 3 Meanings When Nothing Made Sense; 4 Changing Meanings, Making Sense; 5 New Meanings, Sense Made; 6 Conclusion; References;
Chapter 2: After the Tango in the Doorway: An Autoethnography of Living with Persistent Pain; 1 Introduction; 2 Writing an Autoethnography; 3 Going to the Doctor; 4 The Tango in the Doorway; 5 The Good Doctor Said; 6 Is Explanation Enough?; 7 Tensions Between a Culture of Medicine and a Personś Need 3.3 The Importance of Support in Managing the Struggle4 Managing the Self in Pain; 4.1 Long Term Support for Self-Management; 4.2 The Role of Medications; 4.3 Developing Knowledge About Medication Use; 4.4 Exercise; 4.5 Psychological Interventions; 4.6 Mindfulness; 4.7 Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Pain; 5 Conclusion; References;
Chapter 5: Changing Pain: Making Sense of Rehabilitation in Persistent Spine Pain; 1 Introduction; 2 Defining Pain; 3 Pain and Psychosocial Context; 4 Chronic Spine Pain Management as Patient-Centered Active Care 4 The Phenomenological Shift: Assessing the Modalities of Suffering5 An Integrative Method that Objectively Captures Subjective Suffering; References;
Chapter 4: ``Pain Takes Over Everything:́́ The Experience of Pain and Strategies for Management; 1 The Somatic Experience of Chronic Pain; 2 The Personal Experience of Chronic Pain; 2.1 Body as Obstacle; 2.2 Disrupted Sense of Self; 2.3 Invisible But Real; 2.4 Unpredictability; 2.5 Fighting to Keep Going; 3 Learning to Live with Chronic Pain; 3.1 Adjusting to the Inevitable; 3.2 Doing It My Way Without Medication 5 The Promise of Interdisciplinary, Multimodal Pain Management6 Patient Education and the Therapeutic Alliance; 7 Exercise in the Management of Spine Pain; 8 The Science of Exercise in Spine Pain Management; 9 Medical Treatments and Interventions: When Is It the Right Time?; 10 Conclusion; References;
Chapter 6: ``Let Me Be a Meaningful Part in the Outside World:́́ A Caring Perspective on Long-Term Rheumatic Pain and Fear-Avo ... ; 1 Rheumatic Pain; 2 Meanings of Pain; 3 Emotional Meanings of Pain Associated with Rheumatism: The Painful and Untrustworthy Body 8 What Am I Today and How Did I Get There? And Why Does that Matter in a Book About the Meanings of Pain?9 ``Us ́́and ``Them:́́ Othering; 10 Learning to Live with Pain; 11 Physician, Heal Thyself; 12 Alone But Not Alone, Yet Alone; References;
Chapter 3: Diagnosing Human Suffering and Pain: Integrating Phenomenology in Science and Medicine; 1 Introduction: Phenomenology for the Practical Life of Evaluating Suffering in Pain Patients; 2 Defining Suffering/Pain-Related Suffering: Biases and Confusions; 3 The Important Parallelism Between Pain and Suffering