Library
APS Bulletin • Volume 18, Number 2, 2008
Resource Reviews
John D. Loeser, MD, Department Editor
Being in Pain
Reviewed by Mark Sullivan, MD PhD
Abraham Olivier, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 2007. Soft cover, 212 pages, ISBN 978-3-631-56225-3, $46.95.
This book reads like a revision of the author’s philosophy dissertation—and it is. Though it is difficult to read, it does feature some interesting and novel ideas. Olivier begins with French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s assertion “I am a perceiving body.” Merleau-Ponty’s central insight was that the body is uniquely both perceived and a perceiver, both object and subject of perception. Olivier extends this to “as a perceiving body I am in pain.” His point is that pain is not an object of perception, but a disturbed mode of bodily perception.
“Pain makes a difference to my whole being. When I say I have a pain, then I mean I am in pain.” Pain is not primarily a phenomenon in the objective body, but a disturbance of the perceiving subject. Pain is not just a part of our experience, but it changes our perspective on our experience.
The three types of pain Olivier distinguishes (hurt, affliction, and agony) are defined by how pervasively they change our perspective. His account does not distinguish between pain and suffering because he considers both as more focal and more global forms of the same phenomenon.
Olivier takes us through clinical, literary, and philosophical accounts of pain to demonstrate the validity and utility of his subject-focused account of pain. He shows how pain changes our sense of time and space, and I believe he succeeds at demonstrating how pain, especially when severe or chronic, pervasively alters our perspective. In the last section of his book, Olivier attempts to demonstrate how this emphasis on perspective gives us new tools to liberate others and ourselves from pain. This is the least satisfying part of the book; the chapter is difficult to read and repetitive. It is not clear what Olivier adds to current ideas in pain psychology, such as mindfulness, acceptance, and catastrophizing. APS members may find this book prompts some novel thinking, but they will find few answers here that will be useful in the moment.
Dr. Sullivan is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.
