Talking Pain: Review of The Language of Pain. Finding Words, Compassion, Relief

Abstract

Reviews the book, The language of pain. Finding words, compassion, relief by David Biro (see record 2009-23446-000). This book promises to provide some insight into how we can use language to communicate pain and how, in so doing, the burden of pain can be eased. The writer has himself suffered the depths of isolation into which pain throws us, when he was treated with a bone marrow transplant for a life-threatening blood disorder. Biro's book guides the reader through a literature that gives expression to pain and suffering. Whatever that literature adds to our ability to understand and communicate pain, perhaps the greatest insight that Biro provides is that in communicating pain, and subsequently having that pain validated, there is tremendous therapeutic value. And if pain is silent, that should not signal us to ignore but to probe further as in discovering pain, sharing it, and understanding it, we offer the best therapeutic intervention of all. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).