@sciencenow (via @jchyip) claims that Fear of Death Makes People Into Believers (of Science) (June 2013)
The article reports on a British experiment in which researchers invited subjects EITHER to contemplate their own death OR to contemplate dental pain. But contemplating death is not the same as fear of death. As I have pointed out on this blog before (a) the contemplation of one's own death is a standard meditative practice, and (b) contemplating dental pain is probably a lot more realistic and unpleasant than contemplating one's death.
So why do researchers persist in constructing a dubious comparison between death and dental pain?
Mortality salience and the spreading activation of worldview-relevant constructs: exploring the cognitive architecture of terror management
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2002 Sep;131(3):307-24
From terror to joy: automatic tuning to positive affective information following mortality salience
Psychol Sci. 2007 Nov;18(11):984-90
Sex and Death (October 2011)
Wikipedia: Mortality Salience
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Saturday, May 04, 2013
A life without pain?
@giles_fraser writes
I have written before on this blog about the biological function of pain. In Cycle of Pain Relief, I discussed how pain relief becomes the problem, illustrated by the last 48 hours of Kurt Cobain. And in Back Pain, while sympathizing with Scott (Dilbert) Adams, who had complained about his own back pain and suggested that his back was evil, I suggested that sometimes it was the painkillers that were evil - especially the casual use of painkillers - because they interfere with the natural communication between the mind and the body, and the natural balance of work, rest and play. See also my post on The Purpose of Labour Pains.
I have no fondness for pain per se. And I can even imagine taking a draught of something myself one day, were some pain to become utterly intolerable. I do understand. And, yes, even understand that helping others to do it can sometimes be an act of mercy.
But it is also right to push back against the general assumption that pain reduction is unproblematic. For pain is so much a part of life that its suppression can also be a suppression of a great deal of that which is valuable. Constantly anaesthetising ourselves against pain is also a way to reduce our exposure to so much that is wonderful about life.
Yet too many of us make a Faustian pact with pharmacology, welcoming its obvious benefits, but ignoring the fact that drugs also can demand your soul. That's perhaps why we speak of the overly drugged-up as zombies.
Giles Fraser, My Problem With Euthanasia (Guardian 3 May 2013)
I have written before on this blog about the biological function of pain. In Cycle of Pain Relief, I discussed how pain relief becomes the problem, illustrated by the last 48 hours of Kurt Cobain. And in Back Pain, while sympathizing with Scott (Dilbert) Adams, who had complained about his own back pain and suggested that his back was evil, I suggested that sometimes it was the painkillers that were evil - especially the casual use of painkillers - because they interfere with the natural communication between the mind and the body, and the natural balance of work, rest and play. See also my post on The Purpose of Labour Pains.
Saturday, November 05, 2011
Cycle of Pain Relief
From a documentary entitled "The Last 48 Hours of Kurt Cobain"
One of the consequences of severe pain is that the sufferer starts to focus on the pain itself, rather than the cause of the pain. The pain becomes objectified as the enemy, to be attacked by various forms of pain relief.
Pain relief may provide temporary respite from unremitting pain; but if the root cause of the pain is not dealt with, the sufferer becomes dependent upon the pain relief. Furthermore, the (objectified) pain relief becomes increasingly ineffective as the (objectified) pain fights back. Eventually the (objectified) pain relief itself becomes the problem. There are several feedback loops here, that serve to maintain or even amplify the suffering, as Kurt Cobain himself was painfully aware.
By the way, techniques such as hypnosis encourage the sufferer to objectify the pain, as a step towards pain management. See for example G. Edward Riley, "Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, and Hypnotherapists", Find Counseling.com (formerly TherapistFinder.net) Mental Health Journal, April, 2001. See also Jean Jackson, "Chronic pain and the tension between the body as subject and object" in Thomas J. Csordas (ed), Embodiment and experience: the existential ground of culture and self. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
"It does become debilitating being addicted man (you know) and you can blame it on other things - My Stomach Hurts, I Had Chronic Back Pain For Three Years, ... The more stuff you do for pain, the more pain you have, and the more you need for the pain, and the more acute your pain becomes (you know)"
One of the consequences of severe pain is that the sufferer starts to focus on the pain itself, rather than the cause of the pain. The pain becomes objectified as the enemy, to be attacked by various forms of pain relief.
Pain relief may provide temporary respite from unremitting pain; but if the root cause of the pain is not dealt with, the sufferer becomes dependent upon the pain relief. Furthermore, the (objectified) pain relief becomes increasingly ineffective as the (objectified) pain fights back. Eventually the (objectified) pain relief itself becomes the problem. There are several feedback loops here, that serve to maintain or even amplify the suffering, as Kurt Cobain himself was painfully aware.
I'm worse at what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed.
By the way, techniques such as hypnosis encourage the sufferer to objectify the pain, as a step towards pain management. See for example G. Edward Riley, "Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, and Hypnotherapists", Find Counseling.com (formerly TherapistFinder.net) Mental Health Journal, April, 2001. See also Jean Jackson, "Chronic pain and the tension between the body as subject and object" in Thomas J. Csordas (ed), Embodiment and experience: the existential ground of culture and self. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Understanding pain
Many of us have a compulsion to look away during a painful event such as an injection. But scientists have found that looking at your body can reduce the amount of pain you experience.
Source: Flavia Mancini, Matthew R. Longo, Marjolein P.M. Kammers and Patrick Haggard, "Visual Distortion of Body Size Modulates Pain Perception" Psychological Science February 8, 2011 doi: 10.1177/0956797611398496 via Rebecca Morelle "Pain reduced by changing what you look at" BBC News 10 February 2011.
One way to understand this phenomenon is to understand the purpose of pain - as a signal. If you are looking at your arm, your brain is getting visual information about what is happening to your arm, so it doesn't need to pay so much attention to other sensory information. Therefore you feel less pain.
The researchers also found that this effect could be increased if the hand was magnified to make it appear larger, thus cutting pain levels further still.
To the extent that pain has a natural purpose, there is something problematic about conventional attempts to suppress pain, such as pain-killing drugs. We may note that the drugs often get less effective over time, as if the body is reasserting its need for information. The POSIWID principle explains why it's difficult to permanently suppress those symptoms that reflect an inherent purpose. (Some might argue that all symptoms reflect some purpose.) However, if we offer the system an alternative way of fulfilling the purpose - an alternative information channel - then the symptom can be attenuated without frustrating its purpose.
Source: Flavia Mancini, Matthew R. Longo, Marjolein P.M. Kammers and Patrick Haggard, "Visual Distortion of Body Size Modulates Pain Perception" Psychological Science February 8, 2011 doi: 10.1177/0956797611398496 via Rebecca Morelle "Pain reduced by changing what you look at" BBC News 10 February 2011.
One way to understand this phenomenon is to understand the purpose of pain - as a signal. If you are looking at your arm, your brain is getting visual information about what is happening to your arm, so it doesn't need to pay so much attention to other sensory information. Therefore you feel less pain.
The researchers also found that this effect could be increased if the hand was magnified to make it appear larger, thus cutting pain levels further still.
To the extent that pain has a natural purpose, there is something problematic about conventional attempts to suppress pain, such as pain-killing drugs. We may note that the drugs often get less effective over time, as if the body is reasserting its need for information. The POSIWID principle explains why it's difficult to permanently suppress those symptoms that reflect an inherent purpose. (Some might argue that all symptoms reflect some purpose.) However, if we offer the system an alternative way of fulfilling the purpose - an alternative information channel - then the symptom can be attenuated without frustrating its purpose.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Purpose of Labour Pains
In my post on Back Pain, in response to Scott Adam's complaint that back-pain was evil, I asserted that pain has a perfectly valid function, and it is painkillers that are evil.
However, although this is the general function of pain, it sometimes doesn't seem to work properly. For example, in some chronic situations such as cancer, the body sends excessive pain signals to which the only possible response appears to be some kind of signal blocking mechanism such as drugs or TENS. Alternative therapies in this category might include acupuncture and hypnosis.
Childbirth is another situation where pain-killing drugs and TENS machines are commonly used. Why should mothers suffer labour pains?
Childbirth is a natural and, if all goes well, perfectly healthy procedure; many people therefore think it is inappropriate to treat childbirth as a medical condition. And there is a common ideology of "natural" childbirth: many women adopt birth plans that aim to avoid excessive medical intervention, not just out of bravado or authenticity, but also for fear of unnecessary side-effects.
But it is one thing to oppose or refuse excessive medical intervention; quite another to assert that labour pain has a positive function, as does Dr Denis Walsh.
Dr Denis Walsh is an associate professor of midwifery at the University of Nottingham; he is described by the Observer as "one of the UK's leading midwives". The basis for his claim is apparently set out in an article Dr Walsh has written for the Royal College of Midwives journal Evidence-Based Midwifery. (See note below)
Evidence-based midwifery, huh? I wonder what kind of evidence can Dr Walsh produce for the purpose of labour pains? Is this perhaps the kind of hypothesis that can only be evaluated by evolutionary biologists? Labour pains have doubtless co-evolved with maternal care, many other species lacking both, but can we really conclude that labour pains are an adaptation that help to promote maternal care? I think it is more plausible to say that labour pains are a side-effect of a much more important adaptation, namely large brains.
In any case, evolutionary biology offers one possible meaning of the word "purpose" - some functional trait that has evolved or co-evolved for a reason. If that's not what Dr Walsh means, what else could he possibly mean?
Note 1: Dr Walsh has an article in the current issue of Evidence-Based Midwifery (Volume 7, Issue 2, June 2009), but this seems to be about something else and I couldn't find the word "purpose"; he had an article on the Role of the Midwife in a previous issue, but this is for subscribers only. However, I did find an interesting editorial in the current issue by one Professor Marlene Sinclair, Practice: a battlefield where the natural versus the technological, citing Elul, Habermas and Ihde.)
Note 2: I didn't know whether evolutionary biologists had ever studied labour pains as a separate phenomenon, so I tried Google and found an abstract of an article by Wulf Schiefenhövel called Perception, Expression, and Social Function of Pain: A Human Ethological View (Science in Context, 1995). I have sent an email to Professor Schiefenhövel asking for his opinion on Dr Walsh's claim.
Note 3: When I previously blogged on pain, I got a lot of comments from people trying to sell dodgy pain relief. Any such comments will be quickly deleted, so please don't bother. I am only interested in retaining comments that discuss the points in this blog.
Pain has a perfectly valid function - it is the body's way of communicating something important to the mind. If you ignore a small child, it will misbehave louder until it gets your attention. And pain works the same way. If you completely ignore your back until it seizes up, then you shouldn't be surprised if it seizes up from time to time. That's how systems work.
In my view, it is painkillers that are evil - or rather the casual use of painkillers - because they interfere with the natural communication between the mind and the body, and the natural balance of work, rest and play.
However, although this is the general function of pain, it sometimes doesn't seem to work properly. For example, in some chronic situations such as cancer, the body sends excessive pain signals to which the only possible response appears to be some kind of signal blocking mechanism such as drugs or TENS. Alternative therapies in this category might include acupuncture and hypnosis.
Childbirth is another situation where pain-killing drugs and TENS machines are commonly used. Why should mothers suffer labour pains?
Childbirth is a natural and, if all goes well, perfectly healthy procedure; many people therefore think it is inappropriate to treat childbirth as a medical condition. And there is a common ideology of "natural" childbirth: many women adopt birth plans that aim to avoid excessive medical intervention, not just out of bravado or authenticity, but also for fear of unnecessary side-effects.
But it is one thing to oppose or refuse excessive medical intervention; quite another to assert that labour pain has a positive function, as does Dr Denis Walsh.
"Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing, which has quite a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby." [Observer, 12 July 2009]
Dr Denis Walsh is an associate professor of midwifery at the University of Nottingham; he is described by the Observer as "one of the UK's leading midwives". The basis for his claim is apparently set out in an article Dr Walsh has written for the Royal College of Midwives journal Evidence-Based Midwifery. (See note below)
Evidence-based midwifery, huh? I wonder what kind of evidence can Dr Walsh produce for the purpose of labour pains? Is this perhaps the kind of hypothesis that can only be evaluated by evolutionary biologists? Labour pains have doubtless co-evolved with maternal care, many other species lacking both, but can we really conclude that labour pains are an adaptation that help to promote maternal care? I think it is more plausible to say that labour pains are a side-effect of a much more important adaptation, namely large brains.
In any case, evolutionary biology offers one possible meaning of the word "purpose" - some functional trait that has evolved or co-evolved for a reason. If that's not what Dr Walsh means, what else could he possibly mean?
Note 1: Dr Walsh has an article in the current issue of Evidence-Based Midwifery (Volume 7, Issue 2, June 2009), but this seems to be about something else and I couldn't find the word "purpose"; he had an article on the Role of the Midwife in a previous issue, but this is for subscribers only. However, I did find an interesting editorial in the current issue by one Professor Marlene Sinclair, Practice: a battlefield where the natural versus the technological, citing Elul, Habermas and Ihde.)
Note 2: I didn't know whether evolutionary biologists had ever studied labour pains as a separate phenomenon, so I tried Google and found an abstract of an article by Wulf Schiefenhövel called Perception, Expression, and Social Function of Pain: A Human Ethological View (Science in Context, 1995). I have sent an email to Professor Schiefenhövel asking for his opinion on Dr Walsh's claim.
Note 3: When I previously blogged on pain, I got a lot of comments from people trying to sell dodgy pain relief. Any such comments will be quickly deleted, so please don't bother. I am only interested in retaining comments that discuss the points in this blog.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Back Pain
Scott Adams (Dilbert) claims that Your Body Hates You. He describes the body as a dysfunctional collaboration - your back hates your guts, the back is evil.
If he suffered (after Christmas especially) from griping indigestion, he might well have expressed this the other way around. Most of us have a weak spot - the part that most readily produces pain and discomfort, especially when we're tired or stressed. Some people suffer from toothache, others from migraines, and so on.
But in a POSIWID world, can anything natural be described as evil (except by a humorist)?
Pain has a perfectly valid function - it is the body's way of communicating something important to the mind. If you ignore a small child, it will misbehave louder until it gets your attention. And pain works the same way. If you completely ignore your back until it seizes up, then you shouldn't be surprised if it seizes up from time to time. That's how systems work.
In my view, it is painkillers that are evil - or rather the casual use of painkillers - because they interfere with the natural communication between the mind and the body, and the natural balance of work, rest and play.
Update: I have closed comments to this post. I am not interested in providing free advertising for pain-relief therapists.
Update: Scott Adams has removed older posts from his blog, so I am linking to an archived version of the page. Includes dozens of comments from fellow sufferers.
Last update 4 May 2013
If he suffered (after Christmas especially) from griping indigestion, he might well have expressed this the other way around. Most of us have a weak spot - the part that most readily produces pain and discomfort, especially when we're tired or stressed. Some people suffer from toothache, others from migraines, and so on.
But in a POSIWID world, can anything natural be described as evil (except by a humorist)?
Pain has a perfectly valid function - it is the body's way of communicating something important to the mind. If you ignore a small child, it will misbehave louder until it gets your attention. And pain works the same way. If you completely ignore your back until it seizes up, then you shouldn't be surprised if it seizes up from time to time. That's how systems work.
In my view, it is painkillers that are evil - or rather the casual use of painkillers - because they interfere with the natural communication between the mind and the body, and the natural balance of work, rest and play.
Update: I have closed comments to this post. I am not interested in providing free advertising for pain-relief therapists.
Update: Scott Adams has removed older posts from his blog, so I am linking to an archived version of the page. Includes dozens of comments from fellow sufferers.
Last update 4 May 2013
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