Why you need a philosophy of pain
I have to confess that this title is misleading. You don’t need a philosophy of pain because you already have one. In fact, you can’t deal with pain without an underlying philosophy.
Whether you’re a clinician or someone experiencing persistent pain, you operate on a theory of pain.
Let’s say you wake up one morning and your lower back is tight and spasms with pain every time you bend over. You apply a heat pad and rest on your bed while booking an appointment with a physiotherapist.
You and your physiotherapist are acting on a (probably implicit) philosophy of pain. By applying a heat pad and resting, you formulate pain at a minimum as “a feeling which is treated by increased blood flow and rest” and also “a feeling that massage or muscle manipulation helps with”.
This is a different philosophy from someone who feels back pain and instead does gentle movements that lightly but safely activate the pain. Or, for that matter, someone who prays to a deity to relieve their pain.
Why does it matter?
Your philosophy of pain determines how you approach pain
Your philosophy of pain is very real because it directly affects the treatments you use for your pain. If you have an inaccurate philosophy of pain, your approach to pain will not work in the way you imagine.
Just like Einstein’s mathematics of relativity answered questions that Newtonian physics couldn’t, new philosophies of pain can answer questions that older views of pain cannot.
Improving your philosophy of pain is one of the deepest ways to improve your approach to pain in general.
Is your treatment working? Are you fully satisfied with your current approach to pain? If not, then it might be worth examining your philosophy of pain.
In the opinion of many prominent pain researchers, much of the western medical system operates on an outdated model of pain [1]. In a later essay, I'll explore the various philosophies of pain.
Engel's classic 1977 paper in Science arguing for a new medical model was written forty years ago but the criticism is still fresh. Not enough has changed: Engel, George L. "The need for a new medical model: a challenge for biomedicine." Science 196.4286 (1977): 129-136. ↩︎