Will you Know my Pain?

While knowledge and skill may be enough for a health
care provider to treat many a disorder and disease,
it often isn''t enough to treat pain. This book,
written for anyone involved in health care
providers, patients, and their loved ones answers
the following: What is the nature of pain? Of
empathy? What is empathy''s role in effective pain
management? Empathy, an understanding of what
another is experiencing and how that experience is
affecting the other, is a necessary component of
effective pain management. So too is understanding
the ontology of pain: pain is a multi-dimensional
phenomenon influenced by many factors above and
beyond tissue damage. Pain involves sensation,
emotional affect, and cognition. Absent
any of these, the experience is not one of pain.
Empathy is a bridge for the epistemic gap
between the patient s subjective experience of his
pain and the provider s objective experience. A
provider cannot know her patient s pain in the same
way the patient does; nor should she become
emotionally affected by it. Yet to be able to
effectively manage pain, the provider must
understand, she must grasp, the pain experience from
the patient s perspective.

Autorentext

Adrianne earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the
University of Buffalo in 2002. At present, she is Interim
Assistant Provost and an Associate Professor in
the Philosophy Department at Mansfield University. When she
isn't off to far-away places, she's home in Mansfield
Pennsylvania with her goldens Loki and Baloo.

Klappentext

While knowledge and skill may be enough for a health
care provider to treat many a disorder and disease,
it often isn't enough to treat pain. This book,
written for anyone involved in health care -
providers, patients, and their loved ones - answers
the following: What is the nature of pain? Of
empathy? What is empathy's role in effective pain
management? Empathy, an understanding of what
another is experiencing and how that experience is
affecting the other, is a necessary component of
effective pain management. So too is understanding
the ontology of pain: pain is a multi-dimensional
phenomenon influenced by many factors above and
beyond tissue damage. Pain involves sensation,
emotional affect, and cognition. Absent
any of these, the experience is not one of pain.
Empathy is a bridge for the epistemic gap
between the patient's subjective experience of his
pain and the provider's objective experience. A
provider cannot know her patient's pain in the same
way the patient does; nor should she become
emotionally affected by it. Yet to be able to
effectively manage pain, the provider must
understand, she must grasp, the pain experience from
the patient's perspective.