Last updated: Mon, Oct 21, 2024
Previously within this work I've presented a lot of information about pain based upon physiological and psychological research. I've tried to present both what has been accepted by the research and medical communities and some evaluation of what has been accepted in terms of its internal consistency and the strength of its factual and logical support. I've also tried to place this accepted knowledge in the historic and insitutional context in which it was generated and accepted. Science is a social, historical, and incremental process.
In the current section I try to crystallize a few central ideas that I believe address understandings of pain that have developed in an unproductive way. Some of this has been introduced already, but it should be more-easily grokked following the first two sections on physiology and psychology. I don't imagine that I "know better" globally than the certificated professionals, but I do imagine that I have access to perspectives on the subject that they don't. I think that progress in understanding is found at points of friction between accepted truth and results, and I believe that pain sufferers are those most exposed to that friction.
If you are a professional care provider, you will evaluate these ideas based on your own learnings. I have the sense that many of you, particularly MDs, were not in a position to be skeptical of the information that was presented to you during your training. I know from my own interactions with you that many of you are less than completely satisfied with the stories you have been told and asked to repeat.
If you are a pain sufferer, a minimal message to you from me is that you needn't accept the viewpoints on you and your own condition that the care-provider community tends to offer. You're as entitled to think of yourself as "OK" or a "hero" as those who offer help at a price.
Within this section...
Chronic Pain Redefined (Last updated: Mon, Oct 21, 2024)
Varieties of Chronic Pain (Last updated: Mon, Oct 21, 2024)
Chronic Pain Physiology (Last updated: Thu, Feb 27, 2025)
The Scope of Chronic Pain (Last updated: Thu, Aug 15, 2024)
Questions Raised by the IASP Pain Definition (Last updated: Thu, Feb 27, 2025)
Other Theories of Chronicity (Last updated: Thu, Aug 15, 2024)
Or skip to...
The Challenge of Living in Pain (This page is incomplete.)