ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the question of the extent to which pain is communicable and of the form in which it might be communicable. It suggests that there are ethical implications arising from the analysis. Relief and comfort will therefore comprise not only alleviation of the pain, but also the empowerment of the patient, their enlivenment, their re-engagement with the world, and the re-establishing of communication and rapport with others. The objective and intersubjective world which language establishes and refers to is no longer available to the patient in severe pain. A new form of intersubjectivity needs to be established: namely, one grounded in empathy. The ethical challenge of encountering the other as the other is that of letting the other be and of establishing intersubjective rapport. More specifically, in the case of pain, the ethical challenge is to reopen the patient's world so as to break open the isolation into which their pain has forced them.
