379: The Misunderstood Nature of Pain with Haider Warraich
“Pain has a different role to play in all of our lives. But how it makes us feel, what it does to us, how much it can control or constrain us is, I think, something that is very, very universal. And it is time that we start talking about it more, rather than act as if pain is something that escapes language, which some people have suggested in the past.”
How do you define how painful something is? On the show this week we welcome back physician, writer, and clinical researcher Haider Warraich to talk about his new book The Song of Our Scars: The Untold Story of Pain. Warraich explores the idea that far from being something objective and easily defined, pain is complex, misunderstood, and culturally influenced. The book delves into the history of pain and explains how our understanding of it has been “shaped not just by science but by politics and power, by whose suffering mattered and whose didn’t.”
