Acute pain infliction as therapy

Journal article

This essay begins with the observation that acute pain infliction is central to the therapeutic process in Chinese acupuncture. The common biomedical explanation for this is 'counter-irritation', yet this essay suggests that an acute pain event can cause a bodily felt, immediate social conectedness between patient and healer, which might be therapeutic. Since acute pain can effectively be communicated to others by non-verbal means, it has the capacity to break down habitual boundaries between persons, decentre both the person in pain and those in his or her close vicinity and enable instantaneous trans-individual communication. The collective presence of communally felt pain makes possible an embodied experience of sociality. Based on an anthropological definition of acute versus chronic pain, the essay suggests that life cycle events typically structure intrinsically (or potentially) painful situations into acute pain events. Concluding, this essay suggests that in medicalised societies the decline of acute pain events in life cycle rituals has led to the silent rise of chronic pain syndromes.

Authors: Hsu, E

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: LIT Verlag, Münster
• Journal: Etnofoor
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 78-96
• Publication date: 2005-01-01
• Edition: Publisher's version
• Language: English
• Keywords: acute pain; Chinese acupuncture
• Subjects: Anthropology; Medical anthropology