Will You Know my Pain?

While knowledge and skill may be enough for a health§care provider to treat many a disorder and disease,§it often isn't enough to treat pain. This book,§written for anyone involved in health care §providers, patients, and their loved ones answers §the following: What is the nature of pain? Of §empathy? What is empathy's role in effective pain§management? Empathy, an understanding of what§another is experiencing and how that experience is§affecting the other, is a necessary component of§effective pain management. So too is understanding§the ontology of pain: pain is a multi-dimensional §phenomenon influenced by many factors above and §beyond tissue damage. Pain involves sensation, §emotional affect, and cognition. Absent§any of these, the experience is not one of pain.§Empathy is a bridge for the epistemic gap§between the patient s subjective experience of his§pain and the provider s objective experience. A§provider cannot know her patient s pain in the same§way the patient does; nor should she become§emotionally affected by it. Yet to be able to§effectively manage pain, the provider must §understand, she must grasp, the pain experience from §the patient s perspective. While knowledge and skill may be enough for a health§care provider to treat many a disorder and disease,§it often isn''t enough to treat pain. This book,§written for anyone involved in health care §providers, patients, and their loved ones answers §the following: What is the nature of pain? Of §empathy? What is empathy''s role in effective pain§management? Empathy, an understanding of what§another is experiencing and how that experience is§affecting the other, is a necessary component of§effective pain management. So too is understanding§the ontology of pain: pain is a multi-dimensional §phenomenon influenced by many factors above and §beyond tissue damage. Pain involves sensation, §emotional affect, and cognition. Absent§any of these, the experience is not one of pain.§Empathy is a bridge for the epistemic gap§between the patient s subjective experience of his§pain and the provider s objective experience. A§provider cannot know her patient s pain in the same§way the patient does; nor should she become§emotionally affected by it. Yet to be able to§effectively manage pain, the provider must §understand, she must grasp, the pain experience from §the patient s perspective.