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Pain psychology is the study of psychological and behavioral processes in chronic pain. Pain psychology involves the implementation of treatments for chronic pain. Pain psychology can also be regarded as a branch of medical psychology, as many conditions associated with chronic pain have significant medical outcomes.
Modern research has gathered considerable amounts of evidence that support the theory that pain is not only a physical phenomenon but rather a biopsychosocial phenomenon, encompassing culture, nociceptive stimuli, and the environment in the experience and perception of pain. For example, the Sun Dance is a ritual performed by traditional groups ...
The theory offered a physiological explanation for the previously observed effect of psychology on pain perception. [ 10 ] In 1968, three years after the introduction of the gate control theory, Ronald Melzack concluded that pain is a multidimensional complex with numerous sensory, affective, cognitive, and evaluative components.
' pain receptor ') is a sensory neuron that responds to damaging or potentially damaging stimuli by sending "possible threat" signals [1] [2] [3] to the spinal cord and the brain. The brain creates the sensation of pain to direct attention to the body part, so the threat can be mitigated; this process is called nociception .
An example of the fear-avoidance model, anxiety sensitivity stems from the fear that the symptoms of anxiety will lead to harmful social and physical effects. As a result, the individual delays the situation by avoiding any stimuli related to pain-inducing situations and activities, becoming restricted in normal daily function.
For example, when the body is hungry, the pleasure of rewarding food to one-self restores the body back to a balanced state of replenished energy. Like so, this can also be applied to pain, because the ability to perceive pain enhances both avoidance and defensive mechanisms that were, and still are, necessary for survival. [5]
Pain tolerance is the maximum level of pain that a person is able to tolerate. Pain tolerance is distinct from pain threshold (the point at which pain begins to be felt). [1] The perception of pain that goes in to pain tolerance has two major components. First is the biological component—the headache or skin prickling that activates pain ...
To explain the process of perception, an example could be an ordinary shoe. The shoe itself is the distal stimulus. When light from the shoe enters a person's eye and stimulates the retina, that stimulation is the proximal stimulus. [9] The image of the shoe reconstructed by the brain of the person is the percept.