Mental Health and Pain: Somatic and Psychiatric Components of Pain in Mental Health Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2014 Edition

From the book reviews:

“The purpose of the book is to provide an understanding of the causes of pain and management of pain in persons with mental illness, but they also want providers to be cognizant of the need to evaluate these patients for both emotional and physical pain. … Mental health providers are the intended audience. … The authors make a good attempt to provide information on a topic that is difficult to manage for those who work with the mentally ill.” (Alyson Myers, Doody’s Book Reviews, November, 2014)

This book proposes a didactic approach to the different aspects of pain in mental health. The various chapters cover the myths, neurophysiology, perception, measurement and management of pain in mental health. The most common problems, including mood disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety, somatoform disorders, and pervasive developmental disorders, are covered. Each chapter addresses the problem of pain by putting an emphasis on the characteristics of different populations of patients suffering from mental illness. The book helps specialists working in different areas of mental health to appreciate the importance of pain problems in mental health, and also offers avenues for the measurement and treatment of pain in these patients.

Mental health and pain are complex issues. They also share certain mutually influential neurophysiological mechanisms, which makes it even more difficult to identify their specific individual characteristics. This duality between the somatic and psychiccomponents can become a pitfall for the specialist in mental health since it can be difficult to disentangle the evolution of a painful condition from the mental illness.