Finding a place for pain in medicine, in policy, and in life

Abstract This chapter argues that we cannot cure or abolish pain from human life. The utilitarians argued that all pain is bad, and professional pain medicine has argued that pain relief should be among the core universal human rights provided by all societies. We argue that health professionals have misunderstood not only opioids, but also pain itself. We work our way backward through the Western history of pain, gradually unwinding the tight knots of pain problems bequeathed to us: from pain conceived as a medical problem, to pain as a social problem, and finally to pain as an existential or religious problem. The great promise of the biomedical model is that chronic pain can be killed with pills or procedures while leaving the person untouched. This promise is one of the deep roots of our opioid epidemic.