Pain

An interesting quotation I encounter in the opening chapter of the Handbook of Pain Assessment...

"Just as 'my pain' belongs in a unique way only to me, so I am utterly alone with it. I cannot share it. I have no doubt about the reality of the pain experience, but I cannot tell anybody what I experience. I surmise that others have 'their' pain, even though I cannot perceive what they mean when they tell me about them." (Illich, 1976 cited in D.C. Turk & R. Melzack, 2001)

So very true... I could only appropriate the pains others suffer by referencing to the experiences of my own.... There is no object measure such as a pain thermometer... and it is also difficult to equate our idiosyncratic scales...

At the same time, if only our beliefs about our experiences could be so very strong...

For... many a time, we go back to revisit this plausibility...

Is it simply in my head-- a manifestation of psychosomatisation?

Even so--- how would it matter and what does it inform us about how to to move forward?

(This is cross-posted in my Disability in Ratology blog)