Emotional adjustment and chronic pain.

Previous work has suggested that patients with organic lesions causing pain may show as much emotional disturbance as patients with pain but without lesions. This study examined 141 chronic pain patients for their life experience, both currently and premorbidly, in terms of upbringing, neurotic traits and personality disturbance. Patients with an organic cause for pain reported significantly less family disturbance in childhood, less premorbid personality problems and less neurotic traits than patients who did not have any organic cause for their pain. The data provide support for the view that a significant proportion of the emotional disturbance associated with chronic pain is a secondary effect. Adjectives used to describe pain and factors causing exacerbation and relief of pain, although overlapping, also differed in the two groups.