Pain Versus Suffering

Posted on Friday, December the 28th at 7:25pm

By: Dr. Stephen F. Grinstead, LMFT, ACRPS, CADC-II

The psychological meaning that you assign to a physical pain signal will determine whether you simply feel pain (Ouch, this hurts!) or experience suffering (Because I hurt, something awful or terrible is happening!). Although pain and suffering are often used interchangeably, there is an important distinction that needs to be made. Pain is an unpleasant signal telling you that something is wrong with your body. Suffering results from the meaning or interpretation the brain assigns to the pain signal.

Pain Is Bio-Psycho-Social

Biological Pain:
The signal that something is going wrong with the body

Psychological Pain:
The meaning that people assign to the pain signal

Social/Cultural Pain:
The approved “sick” role assigned to people by society concerning their pain

Many people irrationally believe that: “I shouldn’t have pain!” or “Because I have pain and I’m having trouble managing my pain, there must be something wrong with me.” A big step toward effective pain management occurs when you can reduce your level of suffering by identifying and changing your irrational thinking and beliefs about the pain, which in turn decreases your stress and overall suffering.

Using A Two-Part Approach

Physiological & Psychological

Because of the two parts—pain and suffering—pain management must also have two components: physical and psychological. The way you sense or experience pain—its intensity and duration—will affect how well you are able to manage it. Anticipatory Pain (which was covered in an earlier article) is also a major psychological factor that must be addressed. The research on recovery from chronic pain is very clear. The people that are most likely to successfully manage their pain do so by becoming proactively involved in their own treatment process. The chances of success go up as you start learning as much as possible about your pain and effective pain management.

You Will Manage Your Pain More Effectively When You Stop Being A Passive Recipient & Start Becoming An Active Participant In Treatment

Psychological treatment for chronic pain is meant to supplement medication treatment, not replace it. Emotional stress and negative thinking can actually increase the intensity of the pain, but the presence of psychological factors doesn’t mean that the pain is imaginary. Psychological treatment goals are designed to help you learn how to understand, predict, and manage your pain cycles, how to use coping skills to minimize your pain, and how to maximize active involvement in positive life experiences despite the presence of chronic pain.

Breaking the pain cycle involves addressing the physiological as well as the psychological/emotional components of the pain. Stress also plays a role in keeping a pain cycle going. Stress causes muscle tension, which then leads to increased pain sensation. At the same time your cognition (thinking) and emotions can also amplify this cycle. Breaking this cycle requires concurrent treatment of the physiological and psychological/emotional condition. See the pain cycle diagram below for a visual of this pain cycle.

Additionally, psychological treatment for chronic pain focuses on the emotional toll you experience living with pain on a daily basis. Important factors such as disability, financial stress, or loss of work are also a part of the pain picture, and psychological treatment is designed to address all relevant issues. The treatment for chronic pain does not include magical interventions; rather, it includes a combination of proven psychological treatment approaches combined with medication management and other non-pharmacological interventions that addresses all the issues people in chronic pain experience. As you can see in the chart below, the pain cycle can be broken by dealing with the biological stress component as well as the psychological perception of pain. When you relax there is a reduction of stress and muscle tension, leading to a more peaceful acceptance; this leads to the decreased perception of pain.

Because of the two parts—pain and suffering—pain management must also have two components: physical and psychological. The way you sense or experience pain—its intensity and duration—will affect how well you are able to manage it. The Addiction-Free Pain Management™ System can help people living with chronic pain to better manage pain thus leading to a better quality of life.