A new view of pain as a homeostatic emotion

Feeling bad seems gratuitous—and more than that, a vast and unnecessary source of suffering. Much of the clinical disability in psychiatry, after all, arises from the subjective negativity of states like anxiety and depression. One reason may be that life requires making choices between utterly distinct categories that cannot be compared directly.

Pain is our nervous system’s way of telling us that something is wrong. It often means that actual damage to the structure of our bodies is likely to occur soon. This type of pain is called nociceptive pain.

the purpose of pain is not to measure tissue damage, but to encourage protective behaviors. The need for protection depends on more than just the state of the tissues. Second, pain protects against “perceived” threat, not actual threat, and the brain’s perceptions in this regard can simply be incorrect.

All of the ACT acceptance methods are premised on three underlying principles: 1. Avoidance causes pain.

When physical or emotional pain arises, our reflex is to resist it not only by stiffening our body and contracting our muscles, but also by contracting our mind. We lose ourselves in thoughts about what is wrong, how long it will last, what we should do about it and how the pain reflects our unworthiness. A physical pain, such as a backache or a mi