Medically unexplained physical symptoms, misunderstood and wrongly treated? A semiotic perspective on chronic pain

Medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS) are a significant and increasing health issue in the western world. Chronic pain constitutes a considerable element of these symptoms, and the lack of a biomedical explanation of their cause challenges the clinical encounter. The limitations of biomedicine become evident in these encounters and expose the need for an expanded understanding of body and symptom. Semiotics, as an anti-dualistic meta-theory, closes the gap between natural science and the humanities and views the human body in an evolutionary and existential perspective. By focusing on interpretation and communication of signs as ongoing processes at all levels of life, biology and experience, the subjective and the measurable will be integrated. A special type of sign, the self-referential, is part of the body's internal communication. These signs may be viewed as the body's warnings to itself, for instance when the individual's consciousness, thought and action run counter to the organism's physiological and psychological needs. In a semiotic perspective, existential conditions may also activate the body's defense systems. In this context, the unexplained pain may be understood as a functional warning sign. The enhanced understanding of body and symptom that a semiotic approach calls for is relevant for the work of physiotherapists and may lead to more constructive clinical encounters with patients with unexplained chronic pain.