The definition of pain

Abstract

SummaryWhat we ordinarily call pain can arise either as a consequence of physical events or as a result of psychological processes. Both situations can be covered in one definition by treating pain as a word which applies only to subjective experience and not to nociception or to physiological processes. A definition of pain, framed in this fashion by the subcommittee on taxonomy of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), was adopted by the IASP in 1979 and has been widely accepted since that date. Behavioural phenomena should not be confused with this definition. It implies a monistic view of the experience of pain and it is inappropriate to encumber it with concepts of “pain behaviour”. At the same time dual or multiple causes of pain are recognized. Thus physical causes, psychological causes or both may produce the unitary experience.