Ouch!: Why Pain Hurts, and Why it Doesn't Have To

Pain seems like a fairly straightforward experience – you get hurt and it, well, hurts. But how would you describe it? By the number of broken bones or stitches? By the cause – the crowning baby, the sharp knife, the straying lover? What does a 7 on a pain scale of 1 to 10 really mean?

Pain is complicated. But most of the time, the way we treat pain is superficial – we seek out states of perfect painlessness by avoiding it at all costs, or suppressing it, usually with drugs. This has left u...