ABSTRACT
Individuals construct their world of meaning in many ways and within many contexts. Pain is a powerful organizing force; living with pain becomes a central element in shaping the lives and stories of families. To be successful in mediating the experience of pain, practitioners must pay attention to the context in which the pain occurs. As Jerome Bruner (1990) argued, “interpretive meanings are very sensitive to context” (p. 24). Pain is essentially experienced subjectively, and despite attempts to address one’s experience of pain objectively, the subjective reality expands beyond the individual’s physical condition to include the psychological, sociocultural, and spiritual self. Helping, for the person experiencing pain, may also need to extend beyond the physical and most certainly to family and community. Pain, more than other symptoms, has a powerful potential for negatively affecting one’s quality of life. The complexity of the pain experience may require a complex set of interventions and approaches that considers the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices present in the family, as well as in the larger sociopolitical context in which pain resides.
