Where we’ve been, where we’re at, where do we go from here?

Abstract

The goal of this volume has been to bring together “state-of-the-science” narrative reviews of major directions in the study of social and interpersonal dimensions of pain. This final chapter takes a broad overview of the field, placing the individual contributions in context. It begins with a historical overview, situating the field of social/interpersonal influences on pain within the evolution of ideas about the psychology of pain. Key conceptual and empirical contributions arising from the individual chapters are identified. In the final section, important gaps in our knowledge are identified and directions for future research that we think have the potential to be very fruitful are given. Particular emphasis is placed on the value of expanding the domain of inquiry to incorporate social influences at a macro level.