Pain is a human primal experience and the symptom that most often drives people to the doctor. However, the pain relief that they are prescribed is often accompanied by serious side effects and does not always help. The solutions suggested by the pharmaceutical industry and biomedicine is proving to be ever more of a dead end. Neurobiologists, psychologists and sociologists have now stepped in and are taking a new look at the phenomena pain. Dr.med. Harro Albrecht, doctor and scientific journalist, leads us through the world of pain in a fascinating and informatory manner. He talks to doctors, to scientist, as well as to theologians, to sufferers, to the hopeful, to pain-relishers and with the desperate. His conclusion: Pain is far more than a physical sensation. Pain also has a social dimension and tells of our spiritual-physical relationship, as well as of our cultural formation and religious values. This conclusion is encouraging: Alleviation is possible. But we must learn to deal with pain differently.
