Pain In Public and Private Places

In the focus article, Sullivan challenges a commonly held view that pain is a private, subjective experience. He argues that our experience of pain Is inescapably conceptual, as It arises into our consciousness having been shaped and filtered by language. As conceptual, pain is essentially a social phenomenon. Sullivan also states that a social conception of pain implies changes In our treatment of pain and he concludes by rejecting the cognitive behavioral view of pain In favor of a constructivist approach that acknowledges the generative Influence of language on experience.