There is substantial evidence that individuals with chronic pain commonly experience stigmatization. People living with chronic pain often share that they do not feel believed by romantic partners, relatives, friends—or even their healthcare providers. Also, healthcare providers often report feeling uncertain or unprepared to manage patients with chronic pain. In clinical settings, stigma may lead to underassessment and underestimation of pain by the healthcare system. Stigma is first thought of as a social identity quality that varies from the dominate culture and is identified by the dominant culture as a salient difference. The cultural and social norms in the US include the expectation for objective, observable evidence of a pain condition: people anticipate improvement when the condition is treated with traditional methods used in the Western healthcare system. Efforts have been made to better understand the stigma associated with chronic pain in order to improve outcomes, but there is more work to be done. Interventions addressing stigma in the social sciences can be organized into intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural. All will be discussed in this course. Stigmatization can be reinforced by media portrayals, public attitudes, and behaviors, and can lead to the patient concealing their pain and/or social isolation. We must be committed to a radical reformulation of its clinical modus operandi.
.jpg "David Cosio, PhD, ABPP photo")