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Understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the Medieval Period

Historical records provide knowledge about the way people lived in the past. Our perspective is that historical analyses of the Medieval Period provide insights to inform a fuller understanding of pain in the present era. In this article, we appraise critiques of the writings of people living with p...

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Autores principales: Paley, Emma G., Johnson, Mark I., Paley, Carole A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10203464/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37228810
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpain.2023.1162569
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author Paley, Emma G.
Johnson, Mark I.
Paley, Carole A.
author_facet Paley, Emma G.
Johnson, Mark I.
Paley, Carole A.
author_sort Paley, Emma G.
collection PubMed
description Historical records provide knowledge about the way people lived in the past. Our perspective is that historical analyses of the Medieval Period provide insights to inform a fuller understanding of pain in the present era. In this article, we appraise critiques of the writings of people living with pain during the mid (high) to late Medieval Period (c. 1,000–1,500 AD) to gain insights into the nature, attitudes, lived experience, and sense-making of pain. In the Medieval Period, pain was understood in terms of Galen's four humours and the Church's doctrine of pain as a “divine gift”, “punishment for sin” and/or “sacrificial offering”. Many treatments for pain were precursors of those used in modern time and society considered pain to be a “shared experience”. We argue that sharing personal stories of life is a fundamental human attribute to foster social cohesion, and that nowadays sharing personal stories about pain is difficult during biomedically-focussed time-constrained clinical consultations. Exploring pain through a medieval lens demonstrates the importance of sharing stories of living with pain that are flexible in meaning, so that people can connect with a sense of self and their social world. We advocate a role for community-centred approaches to support people in the creation and sharing of their personal pain stories. Contributions from non-biomedical disciplines, such as history and the arts, can inform a fuller understanding of pain and its prevention and management.
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spelling pubmed-102034642023-05-24 Understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the Medieval Period Paley, Emma G. Johnson, Mark I. Paley, Carole A. Front Pain Res (Lausanne) Pain Research Historical records provide knowledge about the way people lived in the past. Our perspective is that historical analyses of the Medieval Period provide insights to inform a fuller understanding of pain in the present era. In this article, we appraise critiques of the writings of people living with pain during the mid (high) to late Medieval Period (c. 1,000–1,500 AD) to gain insights into the nature, attitudes, lived experience, and sense-making of pain. In the Medieval Period, pain was understood in terms of Galen's four humours and the Church's doctrine of pain as a “divine gift”, “punishment for sin” and/or “sacrificial offering”. Many treatments for pain were precursors of those used in modern time and society considered pain to be a “shared experience”. We argue that sharing personal stories of life is a fundamental human attribute to foster social cohesion, and that nowadays sharing personal stories about pain is difficult during biomedically-focussed time-constrained clinical consultations. Exploring pain through a medieval lens demonstrates the importance of sharing stories of living with pain that are flexible in meaning, so that people can connect with a sense of self and their social world. We advocate a role for community-centred approaches to support people in the creation and sharing of their personal pain stories. Contributions from non-biomedical disciplines, such as history and the arts, can inform a fuller understanding of pain and its prevention and management. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-05-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10203464/ /pubmed/37228810 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpain.2023.1162569 Text en © 2023 Paley, Johnson and Paley. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Pain Research
Paley, Emma G.
Johnson, Mark I.
Paley, Carole A.
Understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the Medieval Period
title Understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the Medieval Period
title_full Understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the Medieval Period
title_fullStr Understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the Medieval Period
title_full_unstemmed Understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the Medieval Period
title_short Understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the Medieval Period
title_sort understanding pain in modern society: insights from attitudes to pain in the medieval period
topic Pain Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10203464/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37228810
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpain.2023.1162569
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