Pain without Boundaries: Inquiries across Cultures

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2014. From medicine to music, from art to medical humanities, from psychology to writing and rhetoric, these chapters explore pain-what it is, how it affects us, how we think about it, how we express it, and how we can transform it. Using diverse methods and points of view, these journeys into pain are divided into four sections. In Section I, Pain and Thinking, the authors focus on fundamental thinking processes when experiencing and communicating about pain. Section II, Contemplating Pain, addresses the different ways that we reflect upon the nature of pain, itself. Offering responses to the fundamental question, "e;What do we do with pain?"e; the collective answer in Section III, Creating from Pain, is that we construct something from it-that we use pain as material for creative acts. Finally, in Section IV, Personalizing Pain, the authors explore pain within the boundaries of our personal selfhood.