Chronic pain: the need for a "second-person" account

Clinicopathological correlation between first-person patient complaints and third-person objective tissue pathology often fails for patients with chronic pain. It is, in fact, difficult to reconcile first- and third-person perspectives on much of clinical pain. One root for this problem is our belief in the privacy of pain. The idea of private pain is critiqued using the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein who contends that pain and pain behavior are inextricably linked. This allows us to appreciate the essentially social nature of human pain. A second-person theory of pain is sketched, which sees pain as intersubjective action. This theory allows us to escape our current dualistic, and often damaging, notions about chronic pain.