Review

Bit of a pain

THE PAIN RELIEF HANDBOOK
Chris Wells and Graham Nown
Vermilion, 1996, £8.99

Undoubtedly this book contains some valuable information about approaches to pain relief and the nature of pain, but it suffers itself from an outdated style and confusing organisation. Its language is uniformly sexist and the anecdotes throughout are almost embarrassingly stereotypical. A sportsman with a broken ankle may therefore be able to finish his game, but alas for the poor housewife who chooses a life of painful housework.

Rather than empowering sufferers of chronic pain, the authors insist on absolute trust in the pain specialist, and only the pain specialist: ‘If your specialist says that he is still unable to help you, wondering how you can find someone else who can is not a sensible option.’ On the contrary, it seems pretty sensible to me. The GP occupies the middle ground — helpful if the patient allows him (sic) to be but often hamstrung by the patient’s unreasonable expectations.

The patient is portrayed at best as heroic victim and at worst as simpleton. It is hard to see how this paternalistic approach is useful and unfortunately any pertinent information is hidden within the text which makes the irritating anecdotes unavoidable.