- Foreword
- Preface
- Contributors
- 1 Relevance of Pain and Analgesia in Multicultural Societies
- 2 A Linguistic Approach for Understanding Pain in the Medical Encounter
- 3 Culture, Placebo, and Analgesia
- 4 Pain in Children across Cultures
- 5 Pain in Indian Culture
- 6 Insights on the Pain Experience in Mexican Americans
- 7 We Feel Pain Too
- 8 Allying with Chinese Parents for Enhanced Control of Pediatric Postoperative Pain
- 9 Understanding Anglo-Americans’ Culture, Pain, and Suffering
- 10 Cross-cultural Use and Validity of Pain Scales and Questionnaires—Norwegian Case Study
- 11 The Clinical Encounter
- 12 Social Contexts of Pain
- 13 Implicit and Explicit Ethnic Bias among Physicians
- 14 Ethnic Disparities in Emergency Department Pain Management
- 15 Patient-Provider Ethnic Concordance in Pain Control: Negotiating the Intangible Barrier
- 16 The Effect Of Ethnicity On Prescriptions For Patient-Controlled Analgesia For Post-operative Pain
- 17 Disparities in Health Care and Pain Management for Americans with Sickle Cell Disease
- 18 Unavailability of Pain Medicines in Minority Neighborhoods and Developing Countries
- 19 Disparities in Treatment of Cancer Pain in Ethnic Minority Patients
- 20 The Pain of Childbirth
- 21 Gender and Ethnic Differences in Responses to Pain and Its Treatment
- 22 Pain Management Among Chinese American Cancer Patients
- 23 Pain and Aging
- 24 Older African-Americans
- 25 Insensitivity to Pain
- 26 Opioid Requirements and Responses in Asians
- 27 Ethnicity and Psychopharmacotherapy in Pain
- 28 Integrative Medicine Approach to Chronic Pain
- 29 Physicians’ Perception of Pain as Related to Empathy, Sympathy and the Mirror-Neuron System
- 30 Pain, Culture, and Pathways to Care
- 31 Culture, Pharmacogenomics, and Personalized Analgesia
- Index
(p. 377) Physicians’ Perception of Pain as Related to Empathy, Sympathy and the Mirror-Neuron System
- Chapter:
- (p. 377) Physicians’ Perception of Pain as Related to Empathy, Sympathy and the Mirror-Neuron System
- Author(s):
Mohammadreza Hojat
and Mitchell J.M. Cohen
- DOI:
- 10.1093/med/9780199768875.003.0029
The soothing effect of a mother’s tender loving care on her baby’s pain, described in the aforementioned observation, is a prototype of the analgesic value of empathic attention by a significant person.2 A physician, as a significant authority figure, delivers the gift of healing to a patient in pain in a similar manner. It is the human need for affiliation that prompts us to feel soothed in the presence of significant others, and to feel distressed when left behind.3 In this chapter, we embark on a journey that will attempt to provide explanations for the aforementioned observation.
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- Foreword
- Preface
- Contributors
- 1 Relevance of Pain and Analgesia in Multicultural Societies
- 2 A Linguistic Approach for Understanding Pain in the Medical Encounter
- 3 Culture, Placebo, and Analgesia
- 4 Pain in Children across Cultures
- 5 Pain in Indian Culture
- 6 Insights on the Pain Experience in Mexican Americans
- 7 We Feel Pain Too
- 8 Allying with Chinese Parents for Enhanced Control of Pediatric Postoperative Pain
- 9 Understanding Anglo-Americans’ Culture, Pain, and Suffering
- 10 Cross-cultural Use and Validity of Pain Scales and Questionnaires—Norwegian Case Study
- 11 The Clinical Encounter
- 12 Social Contexts of Pain
- 13 Implicit and Explicit Ethnic Bias among Physicians
- 14 Ethnic Disparities in Emergency Department Pain Management
- 15 Patient-Provider Ethnic Concordance in Pain Control: Negotiating the Intangible Barrier
- 16 The Effect Of Ethnicity On Prescriptions For Patient-Controlled Analgesia For Post-operative Pain
- 17 Disparities in Health Care and Pain Management for Americans with Sickle Cell Disease
- 18 Unavailability of Pain Medicines in Minority Neighborhoods and Developing Countries
- 19 Disparities in Treatment of Cancer Pain in Ethnic Minority Patients
- 20 The Pain of Childbirth
- 21 Gender and Ethnic Differences in Responses to Pain and Its Treatment
- 22 Pain Management Among Chinese American Cancer Patients
- 23 Pain and Aging
- 24 Older African-Americans
- 25 Insensitivity to Pain
- 26 Opioid Requirements and Responses in Asians
- 27 Ethnicity and Psychopharmacotherapy in Pain
- 28 Integrative Medicine Approach to Chronic Pain
- 29 Physicians’ Perception of Pain as Related to Empathy, Sympathy and the Mirror-Neuron System
- 30 Pain, Culture, and Pathways to Care
- 31 Culture, Pharmacogenomics, and Personalized Analgesia
- Index