Chronic pain as a narratological distress: a phenomenological study

Abstract

This paper reports finding from a study that focused on people living with chronic pain, chronicling their experiences of pain and emotional distress, and their social and personal narratives. The paper presents an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of six interviews conducted with men and women aged between 27 and 61. The interviews were taken from a larger study of the experience of chronic pain. Chronic pain is a double faced phenomenon: a vivid and total experience on one hand, an elusive and deceptive phenomenon on the other. The nature of this phenomenon - together with the medical and public discourse that ignores and delegitimizes chronic pain this condition - prompts people to question their own experiences and to face what we define as a narratological distress. Narratological distress is the internal battle between two unwanted narratives: The elusive delegitimizing narrative of denial, which seeks to ignore the experience of pain; and the narrative that acknowledges the pain, but with the price of accepting oneself as "ill" or "disabled."