Citation

Swift A. Br. J. Pain 2021; 15(4): 374-375.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, British Pain Society, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/20494637211055400

PMID

34840783

PMCID

PMC8611297

Abstract

In a recent edition of the journal Board et al.1 write about the experiences of torture survivors who attended a specialist pain clinic. Recently I was listening to a recent series of Slow Burn2 which focuses on the build up to the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003. The first episode described the torture by foot whipping used by the Secret Services under Sadam Hussain's direction. Listening to the episode transported me back to my early days as a nurse working in a chronic pain team in the UK, in the late 1990s when I first came across the after-effects of this form of torture. The gentleman did not speak English, did not understand the culture of the National Health Service, but arrived with a hope that we would be able to help. I am not sure how my colleagues, who were all far more experienced than I felt, but I was completely lost. It was not just the pain he continued to experience without cease, but the trauma associated with it that had never abated. I simplify the experience, but we could not help, and he was angry, frustrated, isolated and distressed. The serendipitous event of reading Board et al. and listening to Slow Burn made me want to explore the history of our attention to complex pain associated with torture. When did 'we' begin to recognise this as a specialist area, begin to study it, and begin to disseminate understanding of it in the pain community?

A personal communication from Professor Amanda C de C Williams informed me of the interest and promotion of this area of pain management by Patrick Wall, Fernando Cervero and Troels Jensen with attempts to form a special interest group for the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) prior to 2002. The IASP SIG on Pain from Torture, Organised Violence and War (SIG TOVW) was founded by Professor Williams in 2004 and has hosted business meetings at every World Congress since that time. IASP and the British Pain Society (BPS) have both included issues relating to torture in their conference programmes over the years. In 2007 IASP dedicated the October Pain Clinical Update to pain in the victims of torture, pointing out that very few victims had access to the specialist services they needed...

Language: en