ABSTRACT
Living through experiences of clinically inflicted pain requires patients to deal with the imperatives of such pain: the need to hand one’s body over to others, the wounding, the restraining of the body and the voice, and, always, the inherent painfulness and hurt of pain. These essential themes of the embodied nature of inflicted pain were presented in the last chapter. My aim in this chapter is to expand the picture and to consider the “lifeworld” (van Manen, 1990, p. 182) of inflicted pain, the world of the immediate experience that involves the patient and the nurse, the tactile encounter through which pain is generated, and the impact of the pain on the patient. Phenomenological concern with embodiment continues in this chapter and is expanded to consider “the situation” (Benner & Wrubel, 1989, p. 80), the socially meaningful environment within which patients encounter those who inflict pain and within which they come to terms with their experiences.
