Modeling the subject areas of psychological research on pain

Abstract

The article is devoted to the description and justification of the author’s model representing possible demarcation of subject areas in psychological and non-psychological studies of the phenomenon of pain. In the first part of the paper, the deficiencies of existing approaches to the study and explanation of pain are analyzed, and the need for rethinking the existing biopsychosocial approach is indicated, which can be done based on the understanding of pain as a phenomenon of mental reflection. As prerequisites for solving and concretizing these problems, we briefly analyze the historically established non-psychological areas of the pain study (physiological, algometric, and humanities-based), within which we identify the main issues and statements about the nature of pain (particularly as a phenomenon of the subjective world). These issues are considered in a more specific form on the basis of methodological difficulties in psychological research on pain. The main questions are formulated, including the following: the relation of the objective basis of pain to the subjective experience; determination of the subject area of psychological research into pain; determination of the categorical status of pain and its relation to other phenomena of the psyche, to the categories of «subject», «personality». In the second part of the article, based on the indicated theoretical and empirical assumptions, a graphical model illustrating potential subject areas of psychological and non-psychological research is derived. The model reflects the place of various pain phenomena within a single selection process, and the exclusion of the information necessary to reflect and regulate the interaction of an organism and a destructive agent at the physiological, mental (direct behavioral regulation), and sociopsychological levels (socially-mediated regulation). In accordance with the levels of ‘pain’ regulation and reflection, we formulate the following: hypothetical scope of the pain concept (the narrow and broad definition); subject areas and their specifics; possible determinants that represent their phenomenology; possible hierarchical relationships of pain reflection levels. The paper also provides an outline of a hypothetical mechanism that connects the process of selecting pain experiences (the content of the subjective picture of pain) to the individual personality characteristics of the subject experiencing pain.