Psychological pain

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Psychological pain refers to pain caused by psychological stress and by emotional trauma, as distinct from that caused by physical trauma. In recent years there has been some prominence to lawsuits which attempt to recover money as a result not of physical pain but psychological pain, which has been quite controversial.

Psychological pain is often considered distinct and separate from emotional pain, which is 'heartache', or heart break, due to a true or perceived loss. In his book The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden, Jungian analyst and author Robert A. Johnson describes psychological pain as "the wounded feeling function in masculine and feminine psychology". In the synopsis of The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden, pain from psychological wounds is reasoned to be the cause of our collective inability to find joy, worth and meaning in life.

Note also that recent research suggests that physical pain and psychological pain may share some underlying neurological mechanisms.^[1]

[edit] See also

• Broken heart
• Psychology of torture

[edit] References

• Eisenberger, Naomi I. and Lieberman, Matthew D. "Why rejection hurts: a common neural alarm system for physical and social pain". Trends Cogn Sci. 2004 Jul;8(7):294-300. PMID 15242688
• Johnson, Robert A. "The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden: Understanding the Wounded Feeling Function in Masculine and Feminine Psychology" [1]