PSYC 250 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Dalhousie University, Chronic Pain, Neural Pathway
Document Summary
Chronic pain: what it is and how it is treated from psychology. The causes and effects of chronic pain on the mental health of patients. Chronic pain, which lasts more than six months, is an experience not only different from acute pain in a quantitative way, but also, and above all, qualitatively. To find out, you first need to explore what pain is. The idea that the feeling of pain depends solely on the physical damage produced (simple linear model) has been maintained for a long period. However, this way of understanding pain is considered insufficient to explain some clinical phenomena. Melzack and wall proposed the control gate theory in 1965, which maintains that pain is made up of three dimensions: Sensory or discriminative: refers to physical properties of pain. Motivational or affective: referred to emotional aspects of it. Cognitive or evaluative: related to the interpretation of pain based on attention aspects, previous experiences, the sociocultural context
