Airing Pain

This edition is funded by a donation from the residents at Falcon House, Edinburgh. It’s well established that pain needs to be understood and treated as a biopsychosocial problem, but what about the spiritual side of life? Professor of nursing and Anglican chaplain Michelle Briggs speak to Paul Evans about how some people in pain can find relief and meaning in the prayer and community engagement offered by their faith. We’ve looked at the issue of pain education before – Emma Briggs gives an update on the struggle to increase pain training for doctors and improve its quality. Her interdisciplinary pain management course brings healthcare professionals together with a focus on empathy, working as a team and understanding the importance of drug and non-drug treatments. Physiotherapy and mental health care might seem at opposite ends of the pain management spectrum, but physiotherapist Nathan Goss sets out why we have to see pain as a mind-body problem and argues that mental health difficulties are ‘s