Introduction to Special Issue on Traumatically Induced Pain: Assessing and Addressing Controversies

摘要

This current Special Issue of Psychological Injury and Law focuses on traumatically induced pain and its medicolegal aspects. Because many individuals suffering from chronic pain have sustained their painful injuries as a result of trauma, it is common for them to become involved in litigation. As we know, chronic pain is a complex syndrome, characterized not only by persistent physical discomfort but also by a deleterious impact on numerous aspects of one's life (potentially including vocational, financial, social, sexual, recreational, and emotional functioning). Clearly, chronic pain is not merely an affliction of a body; rather, it should be conceptualized as an illness of the person (Schatman 2010a, b). This is not to suggest, however, that psychosocial factors are necessarily at the root of chronic pain (Melzack and Katz 2006). In fact, there is as much empirical evidence supporting chronic pain as the cause of psychopathology as there is supporting the primacy of psychosocial factors in the etiology of chronic pain (Gureje 2007; van't Land et al. 2010).