Music Therapy and Pain Management
Music Therapy and Pain Management

Pain has been a subject of study since antiquity. Thus, what is pain? Aristotle defined pain as an emotion - opposite from pleasantness and a quality of the soul (Catalano, 1987, Melzack, 1993). Plato suggest that pain was the result of the violent actions of the four elements, earth, air, fire and water, on the soul (Hart, 1974). Rene Decartes looked upon pain from a dualistic point of view, in which the mind and body are two separate and individual entities. Hence, the experience of pain was either purely psychogenic or purely medical in origin. To Decartes, persons in a healthy state were like a well-made clock in perfect mechanical condition, and ill persons was like a clock whose parts malfunctioned (Catalano, 1987, Nicolas & Walsh, 1991). The International Association of Pain Study defined pain and pain-related syndromes as follows (Nicolas & Walsh, 1991).

Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experiences associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of tissue damage. NOTE: Pain is always subjective. Each individual learns the application of the word through experience related to injury. This definition emphasizes that pain is an experience and therefore subjective. Hence, the experience of pain varies from person to person based on past experiences and/or present state of mind.

In 1965, Dr. Beecher investigated the reactions to pain of soldiers wounded in battle to the reactions of civilians about to undergo an operation. Beecher found that soldiers who had severe wounds complained less of pain and asked for less medication than the pre-operation civilians did. According to Beecher, to the soldiers, their severe wounds meant and end to the battle and a ticket home; to the civilians, the pain of surgery means disease and an uncertain future. Hence, the soldiers perceived less pain because they had reduced anxiety. From this study, Beecher concluded that the "meaning of pain affects the experience of pain" (Catalano, 1987). Thus, his study further supports the idea that the experience of pain is subjective and it is influence by a persons past experience and/or mental state of mind.

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Forms of Pain