A Brief Review on the Relationship Between Pain and Sociology

Throughout history, pain theories have been supposed by biomedicine, especially regarding its diagnosis and treatment aspects. Therefore, the feeling of pain is not only personal experience and is affected by social background; therefore, it involves extensive systems of signals. The challenges in emotional and sentimental dimensions of pain originate from scientific medicine (i.e., the dominant theory is also referred to as the specificity theory); however, this theory has acceptedsomealterations by emerging physiology. Then, Von Frey suggested the theory of cutaneous senses (i.e., Muller’s concept: the common sensation of combined four major skin receptors leading to a proper sensation), 50 years after the specificity theory. The pain pathway was composed of spinothalamic tracts and thalamus with an inhibitory effect of cortex. Pain is referred to as a series of unique experiences with various reasons and qualities. Despite the gate control theory, the biological aspect overcomes the social aspect. Vrancken provided a more extensive definition of pain and found five approaches: The somatico-technical, dualistic bodyoriented, behaviorist, phenomenological, and consciousness approaches. TheWestem model combined physical, emotional, and existential aspects of the human body. On the other hand, Kotarba felt confused about the basic origins of chronic pain. Freund demonstrated and argued with Durkhemian about the sociological approach to emotions. Lynch provided a piece of evidence about the correlation between cardiovascular disease and emotionally life-threatening occurrences. Helman supposed a distinction between private and public pain.