Psychology 2020A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Pain Management, Morphine, Interrupt

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2020A/B
• Professor: Campbell

Document Summary

Pain is significant for managing daily activities: pain can overwhelm other basic needs, pain critical to survival provide feedback about functioning of body systems, feedback often used unconsciously (ex: shifting position. Pain has important medical consequences: symptom that leads people to seek treatment, exacerbates illness and hampers recovery, relationship bw pain and severity of underlying problem can be weak. Pain is a psychological experience: degree to which its felt and how incapacitating it is depend in large part on how it is interpreted. Variety of factors can impact how pain is interpreted and contribute to the challenges of studying pain: culture, gender, coping style. Pain is also heavily influenced by the context in which it is experienced: sport- players continue playing despite injury (sympathetic arousal in response to sport decreases pain sensitivity, stress and psychological distress may aggravate the experience of pain.