Being in pain

What does it mean to be in pain? How should we deal with pain? The major trend today is an attempt to offer a physiological explanation and treatment of pain. This book raises the question as to how we can understand and treat pain on a physiological basis without underrating or denying its psychological dimensions. As an answer to this question, the author proposes a non-reductive physiological definition and subsequently treatment of pain that account equally for physical and psychological factors. Drawing on a wide array of sources, the author defines pain as a mode of bodily perception and then explores the therapeutic consequences of this definition. The primary focus is philosophical, but it is an accessibly written academic book, of relevance to a wide readership.