“One woman attempts to articulate her experience of physical pain. Pain with no apparent cause. Also, she’s met someone, and they want to make this work. Words and an original sound score combine to create an explosive dialogue about love and perception. An experiment in how we talk about pain – and if we ever do that in a way someone else can understand.” China Plate
To briefly set the scene, this is a one-woman show that attempts the most challenging of tasks, to communicate pain. For many years, I have listened to people as they try to describe their pain, providing an open forum for them to use their own words, descriptions and illustrations. Of course, none fully capture the lived experience and so we must acknowledge this limitation whilst absolutely validating what the person says. Carefully documenting the language, phrases and comparisons, we must treat the narrative with care and compassion, listening deeply and equally observing how the words are delivered—gestures, facial expressions and subtle posturing.
And so, The Shape of Pain seeks, in an experiential manner, to get over to the audience what it is like to be in pain of a chronic nature as a feature of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). For those who are unsure, CRPS can be a painful condition of an extreme nature. There are other signs and symptom as well, which out of necessity define it. There are many painful problems and we must be able to differentiate to deepen our understanding through enquiry. The Budapest Criteria set out to do just that.
For me, it was a remarkable performance by Hannah McPake, delivering the narrative with authentic emotion, seeking to engage the people in the room. I am not a theatre critic so I can only comment on the technical aspects as an amateur, so I will stop there. However, as a clinician with a purpose to drive social change with regards chronic pain, and as a member of the audience, I was somewhat torn between the two. Flitting in my (embodied) mind, just as when we were invited to explore our perception of the Necker cube, I was critically appraising the way pain was being described, then drawn to the sensory experience of being present and back again.
In a conversation afterwards with some of the people who had watched the play, there was a feeling that we had definitely had an experience. You are not simply sitting and watching. You are absorbed by force—the sounds, the stage, the lights, the performance, and the projection of the script on the panels, which to me represented the imprisonment that some perceive and describe as their sense of agency is seemingly squeezed from them. In the discussion group, we all appeared to subscribe to the idea of pain having a shape. Job done!
Knowing that people suffering with particular sensitivity, and that is not just those with CRPS, will react protectively as their brain predicts a possible danger, means that the play would likely be provocative of pain. This point is made clearly in the script, which you can purchase, and a reason for an actor playing the part because of the effects of the words. Many people have told me, usually when prompted, that watching someone move, thinking about movement, certain smells, sounds and other ‘stimuli’ bring on the pain. When you understand pain, you know why this happens and how very real it is, together with changes in the sense of size of the limb, perception of the world and the sense of self.
Chronic pain is the number one global health burden. There are huge financial costs for society to bear, and immeasurable suffering for individuals. With the numbers of people affected by what we can safely say is a public health issue of major concern, you would expect a play such as The Shape of Pain to be sold out in a sizeable theatre as society tries to gain a grip on the problem. The question at large is why, with the costs in the billions each year and the impact on social function, is there so little accurate and impacting coverage? Most articles describe pain in the wrong way, the ‘old way’, which is distinctly unhelpful at best, and at worst keeps people thinking the wrong way. At the moment I have no answer to that, but instead focus energies upon delivering the right messages and the latest understanding to those in need.
The Shape of Pain is a significant contributor to the narrative of the most impacting of pains. A main feature of the tale is relationships. That of the person embodying the pain with the pain, the person in pain with a loved partner, the person in pain with the audience, and all of these vice versa. Undoubtedly, with pain lurking and then dominating ‘me’, there is impact on relationships. We are social creatures and relationships are important for our health, whilst also being the source of great suffering if we are not careful and nurturing. It can be more challenging to nourish a relationship if you are suffering pain persistently, as the Shape demonstrates frankly, but equally one can gain strength.
I will not capture all the angles within this short blog. Yet I hope to transmit several key messages of hope whilst fully applauding the team behind this play. They have created a brilliant piece of intimate theatre in which you cannot fail to feel deeply engaged as you run from emotion to emotion until the rather disquieting, darkened end, which is wholly appropriate. However, in a selfish way, I am pleased that the venue is smallish and intimate, because you feel so much more ‘in the room’ with the character.
On hope, there has been great advance in our understanding of pain, primarily from the getting together of neuroscientists and philosophers. This has resulted in better questions, with new insights for answers that are most helpful in describing pain to people so that they can give meaning to their lived experience. From there, this understanding informs many practices and tools that can be used to manage the painful moments, and overall seek to improve one’s life with a clear direction and steps to take. We are designed to change, impermanence making life viable, with each moment unfolding as fresh and new. This in mind, we can choose an approach, establish our purpose and pursue it in the best way that we can.
Here are 5 facts about pain (there are many more):
- Pain (a subjective feeling state) and injury (objectively observable and measurable) are not the same and they are not well related
- Pain is part of the way we protect ourselves
- There is no pain centre in the brain. And there are no pain signals or pain chemicals. We have systems that have a role in protection and survival — e.g./ nervous system, sensorimotor system, immune system
- Pain is an inferred state that motivates us to take action to address a need in our body or our world
- Chronic pain does not ‘start’ at 3 months. The reasons why someone experiences on-going pain are more to do with prior life experiences of protection, genetics, early uncontrolled pain at the time of the incident and perhaps gender. There are and will be many more factors.
A brief summary of the modern approach to chronic pain
As I have said, the first step to successfully managing pain moments and carving a new way forward, is to understand your pain. This is how any programme should begin, with practical knowledge and ‘know-how’. To get results, we have to shift our thinking and approach as much as using the new and necessary practical tools and actions each day. This does not mean ‘you’ have to change as a person. Instead, you are encouraged to use your existing strengths and successful styles (you will have had many successes in life, overcoming challenges) to focus on your desired outcome and the steps to take.
There are specific exercises that need to be practiced in a dedicated manner, just like learning a musical instrument, general principles to follow to gradually engage with chosen and loved activities (getting into flow), and thinking tools to focus, create calm and build wellness, our greatest buffer to life’s ups and downs. The Pain Coach Programme contains all of these components together with many other tools and practices to draw upon to embody and live a meaningful life. There is not any single practice, instead an approach that embraces what we know about being a conscious human being.
Managing the painful moments with increasing skill transforms these episodes into opportunities to head in the chosen direction. Like learning to sail a boat, we learn a great deal when the waters get choppy, and we may even capsize! But then we can focus upon rolling the boat over again and setting sail towards that desired outcome. This may happen over and over, but we can choose an approach steeped in doing our very best as we seek to master ourselves. The principles of mastery certainly apply here. In facing these challenging moments as they arise, we create new habits, replacing those that do not work, but always in line with what we want to achieve. Stringing these together with the skills of being well and specific training, we can build a foundation of understanding, compassion (especially self), and know-how that can be built upon.
This is truly an exciting time as our learning gathers pace. My role and purpose is to be a conduit and distill the great work being done by many across the globe, into tangible and practical tools that each and every one of us can use to get the best results.
The Shape of Pain is on now at The Battersea Arts Centre (where I had some delicious potato wedges in the cafe!) until 10th March. If you are interested in pain or dramatic theatre or both, this is definitely worthwhile seeing. Note though, if you are a pain sufferer, it may be evocative for some of the reasons outlined above. In knowing this though, you may choose to go along for the ride.
understand pain 