On top of the human suffering, and despite modern painkilling medications and procedures, chronic pain is hugely costly to patients and society. The individual cost is unfathomable. Estimated economic costs are in the many billions in the US and Europe. The cost is not only in what is evident. Beneath the pain, much human suffering is present that should be addressed more openly. Since this is not done, much human potential lies wasted. This is an additional cost in the fact that what could have been attained is not. We have no idea what this amounts to in money and other assets.
Functional pain syndromes show that the cause of chronic pain frequently lies in the brain. Many influences from the mind play a part in this. This is also the case when the pain has or appears to have a physical cause that can be delineated. Even so, the mind modulates the pain, makes it chronic or intermittent, orients attention to the pain, and puts the pain and pain expectation into a self-enhancing pattern.
In a 'medicine of war, ' the natural stance is one of aggressively fighting the enemy, in this case: fighting the pain. Is this efficient? One may imagine that if there is a fight against an enemy, there is an enemy who fights back. The problem is: there is an enemy, but it's the patient himself in non-conscious mental processing. That is, the chronic pain is so much intermingled with the patient that one cannot fight the former without fighting the latter. The latter is no enemy from the start on but is made so through the fighting. Moreover, in full combat, it's a mighty one. So, as a chronic pain patient, one is driven to fight oneself. Who's the winner?
With many pain patients, unfortunately, there is much fighting going on. This probably also has an effect on society at large. Aggression to inside translates into aggression to outside, adding to the amount of aggression in a whole culture. This may show itself in many guises: discrimination, racism, intramarital aggression, even war. Healthcare is not present in a vacuum, nor a silo devoid from influences back and forth from other domains of society.
A 'medicine of peace' (AURELIS, in a way, without being 'medicine' in the usual sense) treats pain not as the enemy, but as a misguided friend. One needs to listen to a friend. Together, you are stronger to evolve towards a better future for yourself and others, including society. This is a responsibility for each of us. If this responsibility is taken by many, the level of aggression within a community will naturally diminish.
In short, having tools available to work on one's pain also brings the responsibility to do so. A future medicine of peace will thus also be much more a medicine of responsibility, devoid of guilt. There is no fighting against the enemy, no fighting against oneself. The responsibility is to see the pain as communication and to enter into a right dialogue with it.
