What is the family's role in children's pain? Can the family increase, decrease or change the nature or the experience of pain? Can the family create and extinguish pain? If such things are possible, then the reason for pain goes beyond the merely physical factors of site, size and nature of insult, and is seen to be the result of an interpretative process rather than direct perception. The way the family functions and communicates are factors to be taken into account. Formats for pain management in a family setting vary from in-group to individual family sessions.

Pain of organic origin

Family support

Child

While there are many different family scenarios, the most straightforward is dealing with obvious medical or physical pain in the context of an open and well functioning family.

Scenario 1

When I first saw Dennis in the waiting room he was the very picture of misery, softly crying with persistent pain as he sat hunched and drooping on the seat. His skin (red all over) and hair (standing up in spikes with all the grease that had been spread on his scalp) were the external complications of his severe eczema. The severe skin itch worried him 24 h a day, as he slept poorly and scratched all night.