1. Distinguish between pain and suffering.

Unit 3Section1Exercise 1What is pain?

Clinical correlate 1: Pain

Look at the following painting by Frida Kahlo.

Describe what you see and its impact on you. Is the person depicted in pain? Or is she suffering? What is the difference? For further assistance, read the following quote:

"By invoking the term illness, I mean to conjure up the innately human experience of symptoms and suffering. Illness refers to how the sick person and the members of the family or wider social network perceive, live with, and respond to symptoms and disability. Illness is the lived experience of monitoring bodily processes such as respiratory wheezes, abdominal cramps, stuffed sinuses, or painful joints. Illness involves appraisals of those processes as expectable, serious, or requiring treatment. ...Disease, however is what the practitioner creates in the recasting of illness in terms of theories of disorder. Disease is what practitioners have been trained to see through the theoretical lenses of their particular form of practice. That is to say, the practitioner reconfigures the patient's and family's illness problems as narrow technical issues, disease problems. " pages 3-5 The Illness narratives: Suffering, healing and the human condition. Basic books, Perseus book group. 1988

Also, for further inquiry, Frida Kahlo: 2 bios

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo.html
http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=f_kahlo