Pain is immediate and searing but remains a deep mystery for sufferers, their physicians, and researchers. As neuroscientific research shows, even the immediate sensation of pain is shaped by psychological state and interpretation. At the same time, many individuals and cultures find meaning, particularly religious meaning, even in chronic and inexplicable pain.
This ambitious interdisciplinary book includes not only essays but also discussions among a wide range of specialists. Neuroscientists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, musicologists, and scholars of religion examine the ways that meditation, music, prayer, and ritual can mediate pain, offer a narrative that transcends the sufferer, and give public dignity to private agony. They discuss topics as disparate as the molecular basis of pain, the controversial status of gate control theory, the possible links between the relaxation response and meditative practices in Christianity and Buddhism, and the mediation of pain and intense emotion in music, dance, and ritual. The authors conclude by pondering the place of pain in understanding--or the human failure to understand--good and evil in history.
eBook - PDF
Pain and Its Transformations
The Interface of Biology and Culture
- 454 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
Pain and Its Transformations
The Interface of Biology and Culture
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Information
Topic
MedicineSubtopic
Anesthesiology & Pain ManagementTable of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1. Introduction
- Chapter 2. Opening Remarks: Pain and Experience
- Part I. Pain at the Interface of Biology and Culture
- Part II. Beyond “Coping”: Religious Practices of Transformation
- Part III. Grief and Pain: The Mediation of Pain in Music
- Part IV. Pain, Ritual, and the Somatomoral: Beyond the Individual
- Part V. Pain as Isolation or Community? Literary and Aesthetic Representations
- Part VI. When Is Pain Not Suffering and Suffering Not Pain? Self, Ethics, and Transcendence
- Contributors
- Figure Credits
- Index
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Yes, you can access Pain and Its Transformations by Sarah Coakley, Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Sarah Coakley,Kay Kaufman Shelemay in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Medicine & Anesthesiology & Pain Management. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.