Outline Theories about the Experience of Pain

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Outline Theories about the Experience of Pain

Pain has been experienced by everyone regardless of age, gender or economic status.

Pain is usually described as unfavorable experience that has a lasting emotional and

disabling influence on the individual. Theories that explain and assist in

understanding what pain is, how it originates and why we feel it are the Specificity

theory, Pattern Theory and Gate theory. In this paper I will attempt to demonstrate my

understanding of the theories and also will be critically analyzing the theories about

the experience of pain by incorporating relevant concepts from literature and relating

it to psychology.

Pain has been described with a wide range of different words. McCaffery (cited in

Adams and Bromley, p192, 1998 ) simply states that the experience of pain as being

"what the experiencing person says it is, existing when he says it does". This

definition by McCaffery strongly indicates that pain is conceived and experienced

differently in an individualized manner .McCafferys's definition of pain suggests

experiences of pain depends only on the person experiencing the pain and that no

other person is fully capable to understand how he/she may be feeling as the result of

pain. McCaffery does not actually state in his definition what pain is and what causes

the discomfort, how and why pain arises(Adams and Bromley,1998). Bond (1984)

describes pain as being a personal and unique experience which arises in the brain

due to injury to the body tissue, disease or due to biochemical changes in our bodies.

There are two main types of pain, acute and chronic. Acute pain is experienced for a

short time and usually has a specific cause and purpose such as injury t...

... middle of paper ...

...and

Concepts,MACMILLAN PRESS LTD,USA.

Barber,J.& Adrian,C.1982,Psychological Approaches to the management of

pain,Brunner/Mazel INC,USA.

Brannon, L.& Feist, J.2000, Health Psychology: An Introduction to Behaviour and

Health ,4th edn ,Brooks/Cole,USA.

Bond,M.1984,Pain:Its Nature,Analysis and Treatment ,2nd end, Churchhill

Livingstone ,UK.

Goleman ,D. & Gurin,J.1993,Mind,Body,Medicine: How to use your mind for better

health, Consumer Report Books,USA.

McCaffery,M. and Beebe, A.1994, Pain:Clinical Manual for Nursing

Practice,Mosby,UK.

McCance,K.&Huether,S.1990,Pathophysiology:The Biological Basis for Diseases in

Adults and Children,Mosby Books,USA.

Plotnik,R.1999, Introduction to Psychology ,5th edn,Wadsworth Publishing

Company,USA.

Sheppard, J.1981, Advances in behavioural medicine,Vol 1,Cumberland Collage of

Health Science,Australia.

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