Values and why they matter in pain management

I’m away from my desk, visiting Auckland this week, so this post will not be in my usual format. Having time away allows me breathing space to think about things (even more than usual), and I’ve been thinking about values and their place in our lives. We all have values, things we believe are important. Values underpin the decisions we make, our priorities, and even the way we interpret events that are usually considered value-free. Value judgements are part of being human, I think. They can be prosocial – or not. When I looked up values, this definition appeared: the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something. Some values are explicit, things we’ve deliberately decided to place importance on, while others are implicit, things we’ve not fully thought about but have emerged as part of our culture or family or upbringing. In pain management values are imbued in all we do. Some people explicitly value reducing pain intensity as their ultimate goal. Others value reducing distress associated with experiencing pain. Still others consider that enabling people to reduce the disability associated with pain to be the most important part of pain management. I wrote recently that pain and suffering are two distinct constructs. That pain is an experience associated with the threat of tissue damage but doesn’t necessarily equal suffering. That suffering is about loss of “self-ness” or losing as...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: ACT - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Professional topics Uncategorized Source Type: blogs