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Face2face: Sharing the Photograph Within Medical Pain Encounters—A Means of Democratisation

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Painscapes

Abstract

Pain is common and difficult to communicate or reduce into the verbal or numerical scales commonly used in clinical practice. This chapter explores the specificities of the photographic medium demonstrating that visual images (in particular photographs) can be alternative vehicles for eliciting language and narrative capable of expanding and improving communication and clinician-patient interaction within medical pain consultations. The chapter focuses on a fine art/medical collaborative project, face2face, at a leading London teaching Hospital, which co-created images of pain with pain sufferers and piloted a selection of these in the clinics of ten experts. Giving examples of images from the project as patients progressed through their management, we report early research findings suggesting that the verbal language is enriched and the non-verbal interaction impacted on.

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Notes

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Acknowledgments

This work was completed as part of Deborah Padfield’s PhD thesis under the primary supervision of Prof Sharon Morris, Slade Deputy Director, Slade School of Fine Art. Her PhD was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK. We are grateful to all the patients and clinicians who participated in the study and to Prof Alan Radley and Dr Deborah Kirklin for their valuable comments on earlier drafts.

Competing Interests

Neither of the authors has any conflict of interest to disclose.

Funding

Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Arts Council England (ACE). Deborah Padfield was supported by the AHRC and by a Centre for Humanities Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship (CHIRP) from University College London (UCL), and Joanna Zakrzewska was supported by the National Institute for Health Research University College London Hospitals (UCLH) Biomedical Research Centre while carrying out this research.

The multidisciplinary analyses were supported by the Friends UCH and by Grand Challenges, UCL.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, UK

    Deborah Padfield

  2. Eastman Dental Hospital and Pain Management Centre, University College London Hospitals, NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

    Joanna M. Zakrzewska

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  1. Deborah Padfield
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  2. Joanna M. Zakrzewska
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom

    EJ Gonzalez-Polledo

  2. London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom

    Jen Tarr

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Padfield, D., Zakrzewska, J.M. (2018). Face2face: Sharing the Photograph Within Medical Pain Encounters—A Means of Democratisation. In: Gonzalez-Polledo, E., Tarr, J. (eds) Painscapes. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95272-4_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95272-4_10

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