Summary Biopsychosocial Approach to Pain Management

Biopsychosocial Approach to Pain Management
What is Pain
 Feedback from the body
 A warning sign
 Results in protective behaviour
 Triggers help-seeking behaviour
 Has psychological consequences
 Acute versus chronic
 Some pain has no obvious function

Sensation vs Perception
 Early models of pain viewed pain as a direct response to a stimulus
o Pain as a sensation caused by tissue damage
o Pain as an automatic response to an external stimulus
o No role for psychology as a causal influence. Only anxiety/ fear as a response
 But models can't account for
o Differential response to medical treatments, especially for chronic pain
o Individual differences in responses to same degree of tissue damage
o Phantom limb pain

The Gate Control Theory of Pain
 Introduced a role for psychological processes
 Pain depends upon the relative amounts of traffic in 2 different sensory pathways which
carry information from sense organs to the brain
 Pain as perception
o The individual actively interprets and appraises painful stimuli
o A multidimensional process whereby many factor can act to open/ close the gate
o Opens the gate
 Injury
 Anxiety
 Attending to the pain
o Closes the gate
 Analgesia
 Counter stimulation
 Distraction
 Relaxation