Innovative Approaches to Chronic Pain: Understanding the Experience of Pain and Suffering and the Role of Healing

This book sets out to restore the concept of healing to its place within and beyond pain medicine, in chapters authored by keynote speakers to the British Pain Society's Philosophy and Ethics Special Interest Group. Exploring psychological, spiritual and creative approaches, contributors reflect on therapeutic avenues ranging from the deliberate use of the placebo response and the importance of a caring relationship between patient and practitioner, to the use of knitting as a therapeutic tool. Barriers to the flow of healing such as practitioners' careless use of language and cultural attitudes are identified and contrasted with the need to understand the first-person perspectives of people who are suffering. This book will provide hope and inspiration both to people who have become disillusioned with conventional medical approaches to the relief of their pain, and to health professionals sadly aware of the frequent inadequacy of their efforts to help them.

Peter Wemyss-Gorman has over 25 years' experience of treating pain, and trying to help patients to live well with pain he had all too often failed to relieve. He established the Pain Clinic and Pain Management Programme at the Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath, and was the co-founder of the BPS Philosophy and Ethics SIG in 2001.