Are pain and suffering just body vs mind?
After dropping mind/body dualism, pain cannot stay ‘only physical’ and suffering ‘only psychological’; both are whole-person experiences shaped by attitude and culture.
Source
Conceptualizing suffering and pain
Inspect source passages
Are pain and suffering just body vs mind?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
Old split to drop?
Simply put, it is no longer acceptable to consider pain only in physical and suffering only in psychological terms. The Cartesian distinction between res c
Cartesian engine?
res cogitans and res extensa is the driving force behind the whole structure of thinking in and the organization of medical sciences and psychology. Once w
What they did
The authors start from the mind/body problem and the humanistic turn (Cassell, hospice, phenomenology). They criticise medicine’s Cartesian organisation, then propose a formal, non-essential, non-naturalistic conceptualisation of suffering and pain.
What they found
Suffering is an unpleasant or anguishing experience that can hit psychophysical and existential levels. Pain is also unpleasant and likewise affects the whole person. Attitude, choice, and social patterns matter, so the humanities belong in the account. Dualism’s collapse implies a paradigm shift in medicine.
The limits
What it doesn't show
This is conceptual, not a new pain trial. It does not operationalise a clinical scale. Cassell is a source, not re-measured.
Key terms
- Mind/body dualism
- The Cartesian split of thinking substance and extended substance that organised modern medicine.
- Suffering
- An unpleasant or anguishing experience that can affect someone psychophysically and existentially.
- Pain
- Also an unpleasant whole-person experience, not a merely bodily event.
- Humanistic turn
- Movements (hospice, phenomenology, narrative medicine) that challenged dualist clinical science.
Flashcards
0 of 10 answers reviewed
Research intelligence for this paper
See its role on concept claims, tensions it is part of, placement history, and related discoveries.
Quiz yourself
Pain-only-physical is?
Common questions
Can we keep pain = body, suffering = mind?
No. Once dualism is questioned, that split is no longer acceptable.
What kind of definition do they offer?
Formal, non-essential, non-naturalistic — not a hidden essence in nature.
Who else is needed besides biomedicine?
Social sciences and humanities, because attitude and culture shape the experience.
More on Phenomenology