Self-management, coping – or living with?

After a weekend relaxing by the beach, I’m once again pondering the nature of how people live well with persistent pain. It’s called variously ‘self-management’ or ‘coping’ or, in my life, ‘living with’ pain, and as I pointed out last week, it’s not well-defined. I’m not even sure that people with pain get a look-in at what to call these ‘ways of living’ because it’s typically an academic discussion that excludes the very people who are expected to comply with them! That gripe aside, what’s wrong with the terms ‘coping’ or ‘self-management’? Coping as a word is used in different ways by different people. I might say “I coped with Friday really well” meaning that I’m feeling OK with what I managed to get done on Friday. Or I might say “I’m coping with some big demands right now” meaning that I’m feeling overwhelmed and need a hand. I could say “I coped with Friday by drinking gin” to mean that I used gin to help me get through Friday and rock on with the weekend! So coping can mean what I do to get by, as a measure of success with a challenge, or a statement about my emotional state. Self-management can also be a vexed term. As I defined it (last week) “all those things I do everyday that allow me to have a full life in the presence of my widespread body pain.” But it may get called self-care, thoug...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Chronic pain Coping strategies Pain conditions Resilience/Health biopsychosocial pain management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs