Main description:

This groundbreaking analysis moves our knowledge of pain and its effects from the biomedical model to one accounting for its complex psychosocial dimensions. Starting with its facial and physical display, pain is shown in its manifold social contexts-in the lifespan, in a family unit, expressed by a member of a gender and/or race-and as observed by others. These observations by caregivers and family are shown as vital to the social dynamic of pain-as observers react to sufferers' pain, and as these reactions affect those suffering. The book's findings should enhance practitioners' understanding of pain to develop more effective individualized treatments for clients' pain experience, and inspire researchers as well.

Among the topics covered:

Why do we care? Evolutionary mechanisms in the social dimension of pain.

When, how, and why do we express pain?

On the overlap between physical and social pain.

Facing others in pain: why context matters.

Caregiving impact upon sufferers' cognitive functioning.

Targeting individual and interpersonal processes in therapeutic interventions for chronic pain.

Social and Interpersonal Dynamics in Pain will be a valuable resource for clinicians who deal in pain practice and management, as well as for students and researchers interested in the social, interpersonal, and emotional variables that contribute to pain, the processes with which pain is associated, and the psychology of pain in general.

Contents:

1. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

1) Why do we care: evolutionary mechanisms in interpersonal pain (Amanda Williams)

2) A model of pain communication (Kenneth Craig)

3) A motivational-affective account of interpersonal pain dynamics (Tine Vervoort, Zina Trost)

2. A SCIENCE OF PAIN EXPRESSION

1) Pain behaviour: a unitary construct? (Kenneth Craig, Judith Versloot, Michael. Sullivan)

2) When, how and why do we express pain? (Miriam Kunz, Tine Vervoort, Kai Karos)

3) Ontogeny of pain expression (Ruth Grunau, Rebecca Pillai-Riddell)

4) Pain expression and affective computing (Jeff Cohn, Ken Prkachin)

3. THE NEUROSCIENCE OF INTERPERSONAL PAIN DYNAMICS

1) The neural architecture of empathy in pain (Jean Decety)

2) The pain of exclusion (Naomi Eisenberger, Gian Ianetti, Michael Bernstein, Kai Karos)

3) The empathic and nonempathic brain (Philip Jackson and students)

4. EFFECTS OF FACING OTHERS IN PAIN

1) Observer cognitive affective and behavioural responses towards others' pain (Kenneth Prkachin, Judith Kapesser)

2) Facing others in pain: why context matters (Lies De Ruddere, Adam Hirsh)

5.

1) Beyond operant theory of observer reinforcement of pain behaviour: the role of validation (Steven Linton, Annmarie Cano)

2) The role of non-verbal features of caregiving behaviour (Meghan McMurtry, Line Caes)

3) Caregiving impact upon sufferers' cognitive functioning (Melanie Noel)

6. SPECIFIC POPULATIONS

1) Neonatal care (M. Latimer, Rebecca Pillai Riddell )

2) Parents, children, and adolescents (Christine Chambers, Liesbet Goubert, Laura Simons)

3) Sex differences (Edmund Keogh)

4) Interpersonal pain dynamics in couples (Annmarie Cano, John Burns)

5) Pain in the elderly: caregiver challenges (Thomas Hadjistavropolous)

6) What can animal research tell us about human empathy? (Jeff Mogil)

7. TOWARDS CHANGE: TARGETS/METHODS FOR INTERVENTION

Christopher Eccleston, Tonya Palermo

8. CONCLUSION

Where we've been; where we need to go: Kai Karos, Ken Prkachin, Zina Trost, Tine Vervoort