[Multidimensional, nonlinear pain concept. A broad approach for explaining and understanding complex pain syndromes].

The traditional mechanistic, deterministic, point-to-point-model of Descartes with its modifications of specificity, intensity, pattern and gate-control-theory turned out to be suitable for acute pain. Symptomatic pain as a result of a lesion or organic disease has to be differentiated principally from multifactorial pain syndromes. They can be regarded as open dynamic systems. The implication of consciousness of chronic pain patients with its essential intentionality opens degrees of freedom for the patients on the one hand, but uncertainty in the response to treatment measures, compliance and prognosis on the other hand. For complex regional pain, for chronifying syndromes and for the majority of chronic pain states the non-deterministic, non-linear, multidimensional pain concept is proposed.