Pain By Diane Ackerman Analysis

In this article, The Sting Of Intentional Pain by Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner they offer an inside account of how intentional pain actually causes more pain than unintentional pain. These authors prove this through an experiment where forty three people came together, and were met with a study partner called a “confederate”. These individuals were then moved to individual rooms where they would be administered simple psychophysical test but primarily a discomfort assessment.

In Don Sabo’s essay “Pigskin, Patriarchy, and Pain”, Sabo’s central claim states that society’s pressure synthesizes males to accept and conform to pain, whether that be external or internal with an underlying message to walk away from conformity. At the beginning of Sabo’s essay, Sabo mainly speaks about the external pain of his back, which started when he went out for football when he was only eight years old in the interest of changing his physical appearance. While beginning at the age of eight, Sabo played until the end of his NCAA career, which ultimately, turned out to be the result of Sabo’s spinal fusion surgery, and also was the result of Sabo being “one of many men who got swallowed up by a social system on male domination” (86). The system that Sabo commonly refers to is also known as patriarchy, which teaches kids to not only enjoy the pain, but to inflict pain too. These teachings, according to Sabo, is the pain principal, which includes taking our anger out on other people and “limits our emotional expression (86). Another part of these teachings include taking pain, and to take women, and take their place (87). Through all of this information, Sabo is trying to make the inference that our Patriarchy system is corrupted and unfair. Women in this system are at the bottom of the totem pole, and are even considered a prize for enduring the pain. This patriarchy system doesn’t only exist in sports, but it also exists in the military, business world, and in the

Author Don Sabo, of western Pennsylvania, is sitting down to write and as he writes he makes it very clear to begin his writing with the liberation of what was once to him an intense feeling of pain (82). Sabo played football at the age of 8 until the age of 30 as his career had ended in this brutal sport. He describes the physical pain of getting punched in the gut several times, the breaking of bones, and the ultimate destruction of his spinal column; which in the end had forced him to have “’spinal fusion’” surgery (82-84). This surgery freed him from the physical suffering of his past and opened his eyes to the pain principle. Don Sabo, author of “Pigskin, Patriarchy and Pain”, argues that Western Culture, based primarily on male patriarchy,

This paper will define the term pain and how it pertains to the comfort theory. Next, there will be discussion from relevant literature in regards to pain. Its defining attributes will be

I support this idea of achieving absolute pleasure from the removal of all pain due to a series of corresponding reasons. The first factor addressed in support of this claim is the tendency of human nature to focus on the negative. This observation will lead to the second supporting idea that these distresses which culminate towards the feeling of pain often block out the feeling of the pleasure desired. This secondary notion results in a comparison between the subsequent uplifting experiences from the removal of pain as opposed to the effect of a simple everyday pleasure on the mind. I

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of the Chinese culture on pain perception, responses and management. Cultural backgrounds can have a significant role in how a person perceives and copes with their pain, many studies have identified the vast difference between cultures. “Culture shapes many aspects of the experience of pain, including pain expression, lay remedies, social roles, expectations, perceptions of the medical system, when/how/where to seek care, healthcare practices, illness beliefs and behaviors, and receptivity to medical care interventions” (Campbell, 2012)

“Pain is a universal condition. At some time, each person will experience pain from illness or injury. Pain isn 't only a physical experience; it also has an emotional component that may trigger behaviors that play an important role in how a patient 's pain is perceived by others (Yvonne, 2009)”. Pain can create a great impact on person’s life. In this paper, I will focus on the effects of Chinese culture on pain perception, responses, and management as well as how their ethnic differences and ethnic background helps them to

The feeling of pain has often been referred to as a controversial one, as one of the sensations that is felt by the body. Recently, discussions about the subject of pain have been focused on the difficulty encountered in trying to establish a definition for it. Because pain has no one definition, expressing it becomes quite elusive for the sufferer, which then leads to the difficulty in the understanding of pain by an outsider. Elaine Scarry makes a strong argument that “to have pain is to have certainty” whereas, “to hear about pain is to have doubt,” (Scarry, 13) and with this she emphasizes that pain is almost impossible to deduce by an outsider because all they experience is “doubt.” Although Scarry’s argument is valid, Joanna Bourke makes a contrasting argument that, “indeed, hearing about or witnessing another person’s pain could actually destroy the onlooker,” (Bourke, 46) which could be interpreted to mean that one’s pain could in fact be shared by others as opposed to Scarry’s argument. Therefore, the transferability of pain in American Sniper and Schindler’s List stems from the acknowledgement of the pain of the sufferer through the use of framing and close up shots of the onlooker, and it is that acknowledgement that makes for the possibility of the sharing of pain in regards to the situations of war in the movies.

‘Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage’ (International association for the study of pain 2014). Pain can be made up of complex and subjective experiences. The experience of pain is highly personal and private, and can not be directly observed or measured from one person to the next (Mac Lellan 2006). According to the agency for health care policy and research 1992, an individuals self-report of pain is the most reliable indicator of its presence. This is also supported by Mc Caffery’s definition in 1972, when he said ‘Pain is whatever the experiencing patient says it is, existing whenever he says it does’.

This is a study that focused on eighty-three women and examined the effects of cultural and educational influences on the pain in childbirth. The eighty-three women are divided into Middle-Eastern women and Western women. The women ranged in ages from nineteen to thirty-eight. There were thirty people from the Western group and that consisted of women whose mothers were born in Europe, the US or another English speaking country. There were fifty-three women from the Middle Eastern Group and that consisted of women whose mothers were born in Asia, North African or another Middle Eastern countries. The women were classified by the cultures but were also classified by their level education. Those who had twelve years or less of schooling were in the low education group. Those women who had more than twelve years of schooling were in the high education group. In the Western group sixty-six percent were in the high education group. While the Middle Eastern group only had thirty-three point nine percent in the high education group.

Even though painful experiences are employed within social rituals across the world, little is known about the social effects of pain. We examined the possibility that painful experiences can promote cooperation within social groups. In Experiments 1 and 2, we induced pain by asking some participants to insert their hands in ice water and to perform leg squats. In Experiment 3, we induced pain by asking some participants to eat a hot chili pepper. Participants performed these tasks in small groups. We found evidence for a causal link: Sharing painful experiences with other people, compared with a no-pain control treatment, promoted trusting interpersonal relationships by increasing perceived bonding among strangers (Experiment 1) and increased

Pain is something that connects all of us. From birth to death we can identify with each other the idea and arguably the perception of it. We all know we experience it, but what is more important is how we all perceive it. It is known that there are people out there with a ‘high’ pain tolerance and there are also ones out there with a ‘low’ pain tolerance, but what is different between them? We also know that pain is an objective response to certain stimuli, there are neurons that sense and feel pain and there are nerve impulses that send these “painful” messages to the brain. What we don’t know is where the pain

Childbirth is a beautiful thing. After the hours of labor, there is nothing more special than having the newly mother able to hold her child the minute after it’s born. It makes the pain that you had just experienced go away because all that matters in the world is that newborn child in your arms. During labor, every woman has her own experience but one common experience is the pain. According to Kitzinger (1978) “Labor pain can have negative or positive meaning, depending on whether the child is wanted, the interaction of the laboring woman with those attending her, her sense of ease or dis-ease in the environment provided for birth, her relationship with the father of her child and her attitude to her body throughout the reproductive

Society also depicts the masculinity is defined by strength, and that women cant handle as much. A study conducted focused on the aspect of pain tolerance in comparison to men and women conforming to the norms, believing that men are stronger; two studies were performed. The first study tested pain tolerance strictly based on using a hypothetical pain stimulus; scientists wanted to prove that people know and encourage norms on pain tolerance. The second study was done to observe knowledge about pain, and tolerance behavior. It required actual stimulus to be taken place on the participants; they experienced electrical impulses at different intensities. Results showed that high identifying men were able to handle more pain than high identifying females’ some men endured the pain because they felt obligated (Pool, G.).

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (1979). Pain is actually the culprit behind warranting a visit to a physician office for many people (Besson, 1999). Notoriously unpleasant, pain could also pose a threat as both a psychological and economic burden (Phillips, 2006). Sometimes pain does happen without any damage of tissue or any likely diseased state. The reasons for such pain are poorly understood and the term used to describe such type of pain is “psychogenic pain”. Also, the loss of productivity and daily activity due to pain is also significant. Pain engulfs a trillion dollars of GDP for lost work time and disability payments (Melnikova, 2010). Untreated pain not only impacts a person suffering from pain but also impacts their whole family. A person’s quality of life is negatively impacted by pain and it diminishes their ability to concentrate, work, exercise, socialize, perform daily routines, and sleep. All of these negative impacts ultimately lead to much more severe behavioral effects such as depression, aggression, mood alterations, isolation, and loss of self-esteem, which pose a great threat to human society.