Principles & Practice of Pain Medicine > Part III. Psychological Evaluation and Treatment of Chronic Pain > Chapter 12. Psychological Aspects of Pain Dennis C. Turk and Akiko Okifuji

Psychological Aspects of Pain: Introduction

"It is important to consider how we conceptualize pain. Our views of pain will influence our evaluations of patients who report pain and the nature of the interventions that we use to treat them. The way in which we conceptualize pain depends largely on the nature of the information acquired and the models we were exposed to during our training. In the first section of this chapter, we review the traditional conceptualizations of pain. Although these models are not necessarily inaccurate, they are incomplete. We propose that a broader, multidimensional perspective is required to understand pain and to treat patients appropriately. We describe the role of behavioral, cognitive, and affective factors that have been shown to be relevant to the experience of pain, disability, and response to treatment. We provide data demonstrating that these psychological factors may have an effect on both patients' behavior and physiology. Finally, we raise the issue of the "patient uniformity myth" and describe the subgroups of pain patients based on psychosocial and behavioral characteristics. We provide preliminary data suggesting that knowledge of such patient subgroups may serve as a basis for matching patients to treatments based on their characteristics...."