Pain Theories Essay Research Paper Pain has

Pain Theories Essay, Research Paper

Pain has been experienced by everyone regardless of age, gender or economic

status. Pain is usually described as unfavorable experience that has a lasting

emotional and disabling influence on the individual. Theories that explain and

assist in understanding what pain is, how it originates and why we feel it are

the Specificity theory, Pattern Theory and Gate theory. In this paper I will

attempt to demonstrate my understanding of the theories and also will be

critically analyzing the theories about the experience of pain by incorporating

relevant concepts from literature and relating it to psychology. Pain has been

described with a wide range of different words. McCaffery (cited in Adams and

Bromley, p192, 1998 ) simply states that the experience of pain as being .what

the experiencing person says it is, existing when he says it does.. This

definition by McCaffery strongly indicates that pain is conceived and

experienced differently in an individualized manner .McCafferys.s definition

of pain suggests experiences of pain depends only on the person experiencing the

pain and that no other person is fully capable to understand how he/she may be

feeling as the result of pain. McCaffery does not actually state in his

definition what pain is and what causes the discomfort, how and why pain

arises(Adams and Bromley,1998). Bond (1984) describes pain as being a personal

and unique experience which arises in the brain due to injury to the body

tissue, disease or due to biochemical changes in our bodies. There are two main

types of pain, acute and chronic. Acute pain is experienced for a short time and

usually has a specific cause and purpose such as injury to body tissue (Adams

and Bromley, 1998). Acute pain can be treated using drugs such as aspirin or

other method of pain relieve. Chronic pain has no time limit therefore, can last

for months and years, and serves no obvious biological purpose. Chronic pain can

have a significant impact on the quality of person.s life as chronic pain can

trigger psychological as well as physical and emotional problems that leads to

feelings of helplessness and hopelessness as most chronic pain can not be cured

(Goleman and Gurin ,1993). Pain theories that I will discussing in this paper

are specificity , pattern and gate control theory as these are the major

theories that assist in explaining the concepts of pain . The modern perspective

sees the concept of pain from a view that includes psychological factors but the

earlier theories such as Specificity theory and Pattern theory were more focused

on tissue damage as the cause of pain. The Specificity theory was originated in

Greece .This theory was highlighted by Descartes in 1664 who expressed that the

pain system as being like a .bell – ringing mechanism in a church.(Melzack

and Wall , p196,1984) .Descartes (cited in Melzack and Wall ,1984) explained

that when someone pulls the rope to ring the bell, the bell rings in the tower.

Hence, specificity theory suggests that pain is caused by injury or damage to

body tissue. The damaged nerve fibres in our bodies sends direct messages

through the specific pain receptors and fibres to the pain center, the brain

which causes the individual to feel pain (Adams and Bromley ,1998). This theory

suggest that there is a strong link between pain and injury and that the

severity of injury determines the amount of pain experienced by the person

(Brannon and Feist , 2000). The Pattern theory was incorporated into the

specificity theory which added more concepts to explain and extended its

hypothesis of pain .The pattern theory states that nerve fibres that carry pain

signals can also transmit messages of cold, warmth and pressure can also

transfer pain if an injury or damage to body tissue occurs (Adams and

Bromley,1998).The Pattern theory claims that pain is felt as a consequence to

the amount of tissue damaged (McCance and Huether, 1990). Both Pattern theory

and Specificity Theory are part of Linear model of pain which simply

demonstrates that noxious stimulus such as tissue damage or injury results in

the nerve tissues being stimulated which causes painful sensation which causes a

response or painful behavior (Adams and Bromley, 1998). The Specificity theory

and Pattern theory are not sufficient in explaining the experience of pain as

the theorists fail to include any psychological aspects of pain. Adams and

Bromley ,(1998) felt that the specificity theory does not see the individual

difference in how pain is perceived by people. Brannon and Feist (2000) also

emphasize that this particular theory declines to incorporate how pain is felt

throughout the society. Melzack and Wall, (1984 )claims that soldiers who were

severely injured during the wars reported experiencing little or no pain for

days after the injury while people with ch

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