Virtual Special Issue

The sociology of pain
Editorial by Jane Richardson

Pain is certainly the result of a biochemical process. But nerve pathways and bodily reflexes do not tell the whole story. Pain is also a subjective experience, perhaps an archetype of subjectivity, felt only within the solitude of our individual minds. It is, in addition, always saturated with the visible or invisible imprint of specific human cultures. We learn how to feel pain and learn what it means….. [W]hat matters most about pain – at least outside the laboratory – may well be the personal and social meanings with which we and our surrounding culture endow it.
(David Morris, The Culture of Pain, 1991: 15)

Pain is not just a concern of medicine, but is also an everyday individual experience – hence the involvement of writers, artists and philosophers, as illustrated by David Morris, in attempting to understand and give it meaning. It is fifteen years since Bendelow and Williams (1995) argued for the importance of a sociology of pain, suggesting it to be a relatively neglected area within the sociology of health and illness. They called for an approach that understands pain as a social and embodied experience influenced by culture. The papers in this Virtual Special Issue show that, while the sociology of pain is often subsumed under the sociology of chronic illness – and indeed has contributions to make to this field - it can also be seen as a distinct area in its own right.

Bendelow and Williams’ (1995) paper provides an excellent overview of and introduction to some of the concepts arising in this Virtual Special Issue. They outline different approaches to pain, from the biomedical to the Foucauldian, arguing for other voices than simply the medical to be heard. They suggest that a sociology of pain needs to take account of the sociology of body and emotions, in order to see pain as an embodied experience, and also needs to incorporate the meaning and culture of pain and pain behaviour.

Read the full editorial

List of articles appearing in the Virtual Special Issue

• Baszanger, I. (1992) Deciphering chronic pain, Sociology of Health and Illness, 14,2, 181-215.
• Bendelow, G.A. (1993) Pain perceptions, emotions and gender, Sociology of Health and Illness, 15, 3, 273-294.
• Bendelow, G.A. and Williams, S.J. (1995) Transcending the dualisms - towards a sociology of pain, Sociology of Health and Illness, 17, 2, 139-165.
• Bury, M. (1982) Chronic illness as biographical disruption, Sociology of Health and Illness, 4, 2, 167-182.
• Ewan, C., Lowy, E., and Reid, J. (1991) 'Falling out of culture': the effects of repetition strain injury on sufferers' roles and identity, Sociology of Health and Illness, 13, 2, 168-192.
• May, C., Allison, G., Chapple, A., Chew-Graham, C.A., Dixon, C., Gask, L., Graham, R., Rogers, A. and Roland, M. (2004) Framing the doctor-patient relationship in chronic illness: a comparative study of general practitioners' accounts, Sociology of Health and Illness, 26, 2, 135-158.
• Ong, B.N. and Hooper, H. (2006) Comparing clinical and lay accounts of the diagnosis and treatment of back pain, Sociology of Health and Illness, 28, 2, 203-222.
• Richardson, J.C., Ong, B.N., and Sim, J. (2007) Experiencing chronic widespread pain in a family context: giving and receiving practical and emotional support, Sociology of Health and Illness, 29, 3, 347-365.
• Roderick, M. (2006) Adding insult to injury: workplace injury in English professional football, Sociology of Health and Illness, 28, 1, 76-97.
• Sanders, C., Donovan, J., and Dieppe, P.A. (2002) The significance and consequences of having painful and disabled joints in older age: co-existing accounts of normal and disrupted biographies, Sociology of Health and Illness, 24, 2, 227-253.
• Skelton, A. (1998) The hidden curriculum of patient education for low back pain in general practice, Sociology of Health and Illness, 20, 1, 96-111.
• Smith, M.V. (2008) Pain experience and the imagined researcher, Sociology of Health and Illness, 30, 7, 992-1006.
• Turner, B.S. and Wainwright, S.P. (2003) Corps de Ballet: the case of the injured ballet dancer, Sociology of Health and Illness, 25, 4, 269-288.
• Whelan, E. (2007) 'No one agrees except for those of us who have it': endometriosis patients as an epistemological community, Sociology of Health and Illness, 29, 7, 957-983.
• Wilkin, P. (2009) Are you sitting comfortably? The political economy of the body, Sociology of Health and Illness, 31, 1, 35-50.

Other references

• Barker, K. (2002) Self-help literature and the making of an illness identity: the case of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), Social Problems, 49, 3, 279-300.
• Bury, M. (1991) The sociology of chronic illness: a review of research and prospects. Sociology of Health and Illness, 13, 4, 451-468
• Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
• Lawton, J. (2003) Lay experiences of health and illness: past research and future agendas, Sociology of Health and Illness, 25, 3, 23-40
• Morris, D. (1991) The Culture of Pain. Berkeley: University of California Press
• Scarry, E. (1985) The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York: Oxford University Press. Wacquant, L. (1995) Pugs at work: bodily capital and bodily labour among professional boxers, Body and Society, 1, 65-93.