Pain: a verbal response

Definitions of pain have been ambiguous: sometimes it has been treated as a response; sometimes as a drive or state; and still other times as a stimulus variable. The medical-physiological study of pain has taken three routes: a search for a standard pain-causing stimulus; analysis of the neurological bases of pain; and, methods for alleviating pain. In contrast, it is argued here that the reality of pain resides solely in a subject's report of it. The verbal report is the product of social training, and in each society is shaped to conform with conventional models of pain. Accordingly, the principles and techniques of behavior modification ought to be applicable in the practical management of pain in psychological, medical, and other behavioral contexts.