Pain Behavior

Abstract

We have already stated that pain is an experience a human being undergoes, not simply as a structure of body tissue and nerves, but as an individual person. It is impossible for one person to share another’s pain, or to know exactly what the other person is feeling, even with the closest links of affection and sympathy. We also stated as a corollary that pain cannot be measured. To be strictly accurate, it cannot even be observed. When a doctor examines a patient in the terminal stage of cancer, he may deduce from all kinds of symptoms that the patient is in severe pain, but he is observing the symptoms, not the pain itself.