title: [Living with pain: an existential focus].
abstract: In the routine of a hospital, during my nursing practice of providing care to patients with pain, it was shown to me as reaching beyond a biological sphere included in an existential dimension. Something in this experience disturbed me and I felt the need to understand these people suffering from pain, asking how they understand their pain and what is the meaning of experiencing painful chronic situations. In the attempt to find a way to obtain such understanding, I searched for some ideas stemming from phenomenology. Then, I interviewed the subjects individually based on the central question: "How is your experience with pain? Tell me about this". After the analysis, I was able to understand that pain is a way to narrow the horizon of possibilities and transformations in existence. It is not only the physical body that is ill, but also life is affected in its various dimensions, fundamentally with regard to the family, work and self-relation world.
authors.affiliation: Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto/USP. ludoug@ig.com.br
authors.forename: Luciane Maximiliano
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Sanches
authors.forename: Magali Roseira
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Boemer
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D005086:Existentialism; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*