Everybody has, from time to time, felt pain that is understood as an unpleasant feeling connected to the damage to tissues. Pain is, in essence, always unique and no two people have a similar experience of pain. Some people are more sensitive than others and are not able to withstand the pain others can hardly feel. This paper hypothesizes that pain is subjective and is treated best either through biomedical and cognitive therapies, depending on its character and localization.
The ways pain extends in people’s bodies are quite complex. The starting point is the stimulation of nerve endings of damaged tissues. The pain impulses arising in them are transmitted along the fibers of the peripheral nerves to the spinal cord; then, along the ascending paths of pain sensitivity, these impulses reach the centers of the brain (Ehde et al., 2019). Only after processing these signals by the brain a person begins to feel pain. The way a person experiences pain is quite different from what he or she reads about it, as people have different sensitivity levels. Thus, the pain that for one would be unbearable foe, another can be quite moderate.
My own most memorable experience of pain was when I fell off my bike and badly hurt my hand. In the first seconds, I experienced a kind of a shock to see the road right in front of my eyes; and only then the excruciating pain came. Now that I have learned about pain, I understand that it took some time for impulses to be transferred from tissues to the brain so that I could feel the pain. Moreover, my readings help me to see my pain differently. At that time, I thought I had broken my hand but now I see that was a purely subjective opinion. Looking at my hand, I could see no meaningful changes apart from really bad scratches, so visually, it was not badly hurt. Moreover, though quite strong, the pain was not by all means agony or close to it. That is another point that shows my pain’s transitory character.
Any pain includes a number of components such as sensory, affective, vegetative, motor and cognitive components. I believed my pain when I fell off a bike involved sensory, cognitive, and affective components. A sensory component transmits to the cerebral cortex information about the location of the source of pain, the beginning and end of its and its intensity (Ehde et al., 2019). A person is aware of this information in the form of a sensation, similar to other sensory signals, for example, smell or pressure. As far as my pain was concerned, I knew immediately that it was my hand that was badly hurt; that is to say, it could determine the intensity and location of my pain. The affective component colors this information with unpleasant experiences. I still remember the sensation I had then and the fear I felt of having broken my arm for a long time prevented me from riding a bike again. The cognitive component of pain is associated with a rational assessment of the origin and content of pain and the regulation of pain-related behavior. Rationally, I understood that the cause of my pain lay with the fact that I fell down from the bike. My pain-related behavior included applying an anti-inflammatory bandage when I saw deep and bleeding scratches.
The biomedical model of pain dates back to the ancient Greeks and was introduced into medical concepts by Descartes in the XVII century. Its essence is that patients’ complaints are related to a specific disease caused by biological changes. The diagnosis is confirmed by objective research data and medical interventions and specifically indicates the need for correction of organ function or the source of pathology (Ehde et al., 2019). According to the biomedical model, concomitant signs of chronic diseases, such as deviations and pain, are regarded as a reaction to the disease and, therefore, secondary. In the biomedical model of the disease, emotional and behavioral reactions are considered as a response to the disease or injury and, therefore, are of secondary importance. The biomedical model is best suited to treat injuries or acute states since it allows to focus on the immediate reasons of pain. Biomedical therapy includes bandages, urgent operational help, and the urgent use of medication to prevent the development of life-threatening states. According to the cognitive-behavioral model, pain is not just a sensation but a complex of multimodal experiences. In the study of pain, it is necessary to study not only its sensory mechanisms but also to take into account its cognitive, affective and behavioral characteristics. These characteristics determine the patient’s tolerance of pain, their pain behavior and ability to cope with pain problem as sleep disorders and depression (Ehde et al., 2019). Cognitive therapy is best used to treat chronic or mental deceases and includes various cognitive behavioral techniques, such as psychological relaxation, biofeedback, exercises with imaginary images, and some others.
Reference
Ehde, D. M., Alschuler, K. N., Day, M. A., Ciol, M. A., Kaylor, M. L., Altman, J. K., & Jensen, M. P. (2019). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic pain in multiple sclerosis: A randomized controlled trial protocol.Trials, 20(1), 1-12.