DATE:  Tuesday, Feb 20, 2018

TIME: 11:30 - 12:30pm

TITLE: Pain in the Human Animal: What is it?

VENUE:  Halpern Centre, Rm 114 (SFU Burnaby Campus) 

SPEAKER:  Kenneth D. Craig, O.C., Ph.D., LL.D. (Hon.)

ABSTRACT: People come to understand pain through commonplace minor injuries and diseases—rapid increases in discomfort, proportionate to tissue damage, followed by recovery in a span of time ranging between seconds and days.  This contributes to a biomedical model focusing upon pain as a sensory experience, with care based upon biological understanding and pharmacological, surgical or other medical interventions.  Sadly, this model fails with chronic pain, that 20% of the population who suffer from persistent or recurrent pain, and doesn’t explain the considerable individual differences in pain experience and expression.  There also is evidence of widespread failure to recognize pain, inadequate assessment, underestimation and inadequate care, with these problems more severe in vulnerable populations.  A more complete understanding is provided through understanding psychological mechanisms and the impact of social contexts on pain and patient care.  The evolved human brain implicates potential roles for destructive thinking, excessive emotional reactions, excessive avoidant behavior, and deteriorating social relationships.  The social environment also determines whether there is exposure to pain, how it is experienced and expressed, and whether and the nature of care provided.  Key to understanding psychosocial factors and better control is measurement of pain, going beyond self-report to nonverbal expression.

ABOUT: Kenneth D. Craig, O.C., Ph.D., LL.D. (Hon.) is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, with degrees from Sir George Williams College, UBC and Purdue University.  His UBC faculty appointment began in 1963, and included service as Director of the Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies.  He began as an emeritus professor in 2003.  Dr. Craig’s scholarly and professional interests focus upon the challenges of measuring pain in infants, young children and people with communication limitations, including the elderly with dementias, as well efforts to understand social and psychological determinants of the experience and expression of pain.  Current research support includes CIHR and NIH grants.  His work is published in 10 edited or authored books, 216 papers in scientific journals and 71 chapters in scientific and professional volumes.  He has served as editor-in-chief of Pain Research & Management and the Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science.  He has served as president of the Canadian Psychological Association and the Canadian Pain Society, and he ended in 2017 a term as president of the College and University Retiree Associations of Canada.  Honors and awards include appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada, an honorary Doctor of Laws from Dalhousie University, appointments as a Canada Council Isaac Walton Killam Senior Research Fellow, CIHR Senior Investigator, Distinguished Scholar in Residence with the U.B.C. Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study, honorary member status in the International Association for the Study of Pain, the American Pain Society Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy in Children’s Pain Relief and distinguished lifetime achievement awards from the Special Interest Group on Pain in Childhood of the International Association for the Study of Pain, the Canadian Psychological Association and the Canadian Pain Society.