Ouch!: The New Science of Pain

by Margee Kerr, Linda Rodríguez McRobbie

Pain seems like a fairly straightforward experience – you get hurt and it, well, hurts. But how would you describe it? By the number of broken bones or stitches? By the cause – the crowning baby, the sharp knife, the straying lover? What does a 7 on a pain scale of 1 to 10 really mean?

Pain is complicated. But most of the time, the way we treat pain is superficial – we seek out states of perfect painlessness by avoiding it at all costs, or suppressing it, usually with drugs. This has left us hurting all the more.

Through in-depth interviews, investigation into the history of pain and original research, Ouch! paints a new picture of pain as a complex and multi-layered phenomenon. Authors Margee Kerr and Linda McRobbie Rodriguez tell the stories of sufferers and survivors, courageous kids and their brave parents, athletes and artists, people who find healing and pleasure in pain, and scientists pushing the boundaries of pain research, to challenge the notion that all pain is bad and harmful. They reveal why who defines pain matters and how history, science, and culture shape how we experience pain. Ouch! dismantles prevailing assumptions about pain and that not all pain is bad, not all pain should be avoided, and, in the right context, pain can even feel good.

To build a healthier relationship with pain, we must understand how it works, how it is expressed and how we communicate and think about it. Once we understand how pain is made, we can remake it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Medical, Medicine

288 pages, Hardcover

Published March 30, 2021

Reviews

[Peter Baran · Rating 5 out of 5]

A survey of the types of, and the history of, pain, pain treatment, pain management and - well - pain enjoyment. What I liked about Ouch! was that it takes its position as a personally authored book from the start of the introduction. Here are our two authors, get to know them by name (and their personal history of pain), because they will be referring to themselves, and to their own dialogues about pain a lot. They will also be doing jokes (Mom jokes) which admittedly don't always land, but maintain that personal feel. This is not that unusual in popular science, it is a way of humanising the subject and showing the research as a journey, but feels particularly well done here potentially because pain and our choices how to manage and mismanage our own pain are very personal. This is friendlier and more discursive say than the most similar book I have read recently - The Rag And Bone Shop - on memory, written by a a doctor with clinical case studies - the personal aspect pulls in the secondary theme in the book. Ouch! is not a self help book, but aspects of it can certainly be seen that way.

We start with the neurological basis of physical pain, what happens to body receptors and in the brain, before a more epistemological view takes over. Physical pain is emotional pain, the actual suggest here is that pain is in itself an emotion, and our fear of it, and wanting to dull it is sometimes not the best way to deal with it. The book has plenty of caveats, not least in its dive into the opiod crisis, but there is a general suggestion that pharmacological pain suppression is just a small part of the approaches and responses to pain. Also as an emotion, and something that ties body and brain together (though we need to avoid dualism), issues around chronic pain, and the ability to truly empathise with the pain of others makes everything difficult. Which is before you get on to the gleeful chapter on BDSM and the kid gloves it has when talking about self inflicted pain for other psychological reasons. It does throw Jane Fonda a bit too much shade for her "no pain no gain" workout slogan, but that is pretty much the subtext of much of the book.

Ouch! is a thorough and fun discussion on pain with a serious subtext which is that we all have to learn to live with pain. That could be physical pain, it could be emotional pain, trauma sadly is the greatest precipitant to personal growth (because it forces change). That most of us have origin stories that involved surviving pain, or the adversity that comes with it - I'll proudly show off the scar from where the top of my finger was sliced off by a toy shop door and it is my first "memory" and my go to "I was a brave child" story. Ouch! made me understand why.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive Look At Pain. This book is a seemingly comprehensive look at pain, what it is, how humans handle it, and why it is in at least some cases necessary for our development. What it is *not* is well documented, having only a scant few page "selected works" section to document its various claims - far short of the more routine 25% ish bibliography section of many science books. It is also *not* a biological-exclusive look at the issue, instead covering all aspects from the biological to the psychological to at times even the metaphysical. Still, for anyone interested in the subject it is a worthy read, and a very approachable read to boot. Very much recommended.

[Katarina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting delve into what pain is and the positive aspects of pain we sometimes don't acknowledge. I was interested from an academic point of view..
However, the book's cover and description gives an impression of being able to actually help with chronic pain, which it can't. Some of the recommendations are quite annoying if you're living with chronic pain and fatigue or are disabled ("do some exercise!")
Also, some of the tangents are long and not needed. I feel like I know way more about child development than I really signed up for.
And a lot of the footnotes were just a bit irritating.

This book needed a really tight edit and probably a different title and cover - because it is fascinating and well researched, just a bit... Rambly.

[cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this! Fantastic summary of pain, well researched and written, highly accessible and engaging

[Allyssa Savaglio · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book isn’t exactly what I expected, but I guess I also didn’t know what to expect.

From judging a book by its cover, I thought this was going to be more information and research based on pain itself. But it wasn’t, it more so took the idea of pain and spun it different directions of how it can be good and bad while interweaving fun stories of personal experiences. I did enjoy this book, but I feel as someone who is interested in Anatomy and Physiology that this book took me a minute to get into.

Overall it is a great read with lots of fun facts to be learned, but I just wish it was a bit more research-based and some things did drag on a bit too long.

[Lorena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn’t quite what I expected and was a bit of a slog at times, but it was interesting enough. The first chapter gets quite technical, but if you stick with it, later chapters are easier to follow. I wasn’t a fan of all of the notes, which really weren’t needed. I also felt like the authors went off on tangents that made their points harder to follow. I wouldn’t recommend this for those with a short attention span or difficulty concentrating.

If you have an academic curiosity about pain, this combination of history, philosophy, stories, and research might be a fine place to start, and the selected references in the back matter offer suggestions for additional investigation. If you are looking for help managing your own pain, this might not be the best place to start. While the book explains how our beliefs and expectations shape our experience of pain, it’s not written as self-help.

Note that some of the stories are a bit gruesome and might be triggering for sensitive readers.

I was provided an unproofed ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review.

[Deborah Sowery-Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this sounds a bit like a book that will help you with your pain, well, it isn't really that. However, it is a fascinating look at the history of pain, the drugs that treat pain, survivors of extreme pain, those who take pleasure in pain, extreme athletes who endure pain... and so on.