Word: painful
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...CONTEXTUALIZING PAIN...
...Whichever model one accepts, it is hard to deny the importance of emotional and mental factors in pain. Professor Anne Harrington of Harvard s History of Science Department has written extensively on the cultural and scientific nuances of pain. For her there is no doubt that pain is "mutable" and "porous to cultural expectations." Indeed, "The idea of a context-free human biology is an outmoded proposition...
...thing, this perception of uniqueness is only partially true. A study by Dr. David Diamond at MIT reveals "similar proportions"-both of students reporting pain and seeking treatment-as those found at Harvard. And the real world has its own share of RSI problems: with 20 million people affected, RSIs are the nations foremost work-related injury. Yet disparities remain. Sarita M. James 98 is in her first year of working at Microsoft. "None of the Microsoftees that I ve met have RSI," she wrote in an email, "which is rather surprising, considering the pervasive Microsoft slouch. " Similarly incongruous...
...with a note of amusement in her voice, describes a herd instinct she has observed in students reporting problems, "Whenever there s an article in the paper about that sort of thing we get a lot of people in here wondering if they have it." If RSI and chronic pain conditions like it are as culturally mutable as recent models suggest, perhaps in a limited sense the fear can aggravate the pain...
...This is not to say the pain is imaginary. Like Rowland Quinlan with his searing back pain, RSI sufferers are not making anything up. But as Dr. Howard Fields, a neuroscientist at the University of San Francisco Medical School, explained, expectations might play a part in the perception of pain. In an email, Dr. Fields described the nervous system as unique in that it has what he called "intentionality." This philosophical term means, quite simply, that "it is about something other than itself." Specific neuronal impulses trigger perceptions that are then projected onto the body. "Your finger hurts," he wrote...