THE BIOLOGICAL PURPOSE OF PAIN FOR SOME NOTES ABOUT PAIN: EXCESSIVE PAIN
We can learn to control pain in very much the same way as tension and anxiety, and this includes pain from organic as well as psychological causes. But before describing the self-management of painful conditions I shall discuss with you some particular aspects of pain. This will make it easier to understand exactly what we are doing when we start to work on the actual
Excessive Pain-Of course, under some circumstances a warning may be too strong. As a psychiatrist I see examples of this almost every day. The child who is warned too much about the dangers of life may grow up to be a coward, and the warning has done as much harm as good. The little girl warned too strongly about boys may live out her life as a spinster, and what was intended well has done her harm. So it is with pain. Our body is not always able to regulate the strength of the warning according to the exact needs of the case. The pain may be too severe or last too long. Conversely, pain sometimes is not severe enough. This is so in the early stages of some forms of cancer. In these cases the disease may spread to other organs of the body before the pain is sufficiently severe to bring the patient to seek help.
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