Telling stories about our lives, or creating meaning from grief, can affect our bodies, our biology. Such meaning responses can occur within a broad range of medical or health phenomena: heart disease, ulcer disease, immune diseases, and so on. But the best-known biological system which displays impressive meaning responses is the body's pain system. This chapter will review the neurobiology and the cultural biology of the human pain system and show how meaning can influence the experience of pain.

Neurology of pain

Pain is an extremely important biological process, a powerful signal an organism uses to signal to itself that “something is wrong.” To lack a sense of pain is to open yourself up to injury which, unrecognized, could easily be fatal. Pain is a primary device for learning. Unfortunately, the pain system can occasionally go awry, causing more trouble than it resolves. In this brief review we will touch only the high points, but you should gain some sense of the value, and the problems, of pain.

Some time ago, Dr. Alan Leslie summarized the case of a very sick man.