Sacred Pain
Pain is an unpleasant and undesirable sensory experience resulting from illness or tissue injury. This refers to the sensation associated with actual or potential tissue damage described in terms of such damage (IASP Subcommittee on Classification 1986, p. 217). The word pain has etymological link to the Middle English and Old French term peine, Latin poena, and Ancient Greek poine, which denote punishment or penalty (Swenson 2005, p. 53). However, pain serves as a cue for behavioral and biological responses that enhance survival opportunity in the face of physiological threats. In this sense, pain hurts and chastises an organism and triggers impulsive, emotional, behavioral, and physical aversive reactions for avoidance or mitigation of perceived potential or actual injury. The responses to pain among people and other organisms may involve information processing for appropriate responses to both “deserved and undeserved” tissue injury. Pain is both a biological and physiological...
Keywords
Religious Perspective Faith Healing Identity Affirmation Sensory Discomfort Ritual ObservanceBibliography
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