Question

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Questions:

1. Describe pain according to your understanding of pain and how do people usually react toward pain?   ( more details and more explain)

2. In your opinion, which one of the pain theories you have learned describes pain most? Why?  ( more details and more explain)

Answer 1

Pain is an experience that involves both the mind and the body. It is an uncomfortable feeling that signals your brain that there may be something wrong with your body. Pain is an irritating and unpleasant sensory and emotional experience which may be caused by a damage in the tissues, one 's beliefs or thoughts, or environmental stressors such as one 's job or traffic. Pain is a significant stress both physically and emotionally. It may cause discomfort, distress or agony. It may be steady or throbbing. It maybe stabbing, aching or pinching.

In the past, many people thought that pain was a result of a damaged tissues. However now the researchers have come to find out that pain is an intricate process that might or might not include tissue damage and most likely involves social, psychological and emotional factors, which can either cause, increase, or decrease painful sensations.   

There are two types of pain, acute pain and chronic pain.
Acute pain is a short- lasting pain, which can be easily described and observed. Acute pain begins suddenly and is a sharp pain .Chronic pain has no time limit therefore, can last for months and years, and serves no obvious biological purpose. Chronic pain can have a significant impact on the quality of person's life as chronic pain can trigger psychological as well as physical and emotional problems that leads to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness as most chronic pain can not be cured (Goleman and Gurin ,1993).
Pain theory that I will discussing in this paper specificity theory.The Specificity theory was originated in Greece .This theory was highlighted by Descartes in 1664 who expressed that the pain system as being like a "bell - ringing mechanism in a church"(Melzack and Wall , p196,1984) .Descartes (cited in Melzack and Wall ,1984) explained that when someone pulls the rope to ring the bell, the bell rings in the tower. Hence, specificity theory suggests that pain is caused by injury or damage to body tissue.Specificity theory is one of the first modern theories for pain. It holds that specific pain receptors transmit signals to a "pain center" in the brain that produces the perception of pain[5]Von Frey (1895) argued that the body has a separate sensory system for perceiving pain—just as it does for hearing and vision.

I feel this theory describes pain the most because this theory considers pain as an independent sensation with specialised peripheral sensory receptors [nociceptors], which respond to damage and send signals through pathways (along nerve fibres) in the nervous system to target centres in the brain. These brain centres process the signals to produce the experience of pain. Thus, it is based on the assumption that the free nerve endings are pain receptors and that the other three types of receptors are also specific to a sensory experience.