This book sets out to restore the concept of healing to its place within and beyond pain medicine, in chapters authored by keynote speakers to the British Pain Society’s Philosophy and Ethics Special Interest Group. Exploring psychological, spiritual and creative approaches, contributors reflect on therapeutic avenues ranging from the deliberate use of the placebo response and the importance of a caring relationship between patient and practitioner, to the use of knitting as a therapeutic tool. Barriers to the flow of healing such as practitioners’ careless use of language and cultural attitudes are identified and contrasted with the need to understand the first-person perspectives of people who are suffering. This book will provide hope and inspiration both to people who have become disillusioned with conventional medical approaches to the relief of their pain, and to health professionals sadly aware of the frequent inadequacy of their efforts to help them.
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Reviews
This valuable book addresses two key dilemmas. First, chronic pain is always more than a signal of tissue damage, which is why standard biomedical approaches fail. Second, multidisciplinary treatments (focused on a narrow band of the cognitive-behavioural spectrum) are not multidisciplinary enough. A holistic approach, by contrast, opens our understanding and treatments to the physical, mental, emotional, and social lived experience of chronic pain. It holds important resources for physicians, therapists, patients, family members, and anyone seeking a better way.