The "verbiness" of terms for describing pain

From a discussion thread on Somasimple, the difference between kinds of pain:

"I tend to think in terms of "persisting" and "resolving". - Sebastian Asselbergs PT

"Aha. I'm starting to get it. Conceiving of pain as a condition like alcoholism where the diagnosis of it being a "problem" can only come from the person experiencing it makes sense.

This is helpful to me. Assisting a patient towards resolution will be more effective if I have an appreciation of how their pain may be working for them. Only when they admit that the pain's not working, and become willing to change whatever behaviors are contributing to its persistence can they start towards resolution. This sounds like the movement from a pre-contemplative to contemplative stage of behavioral change.

Cognitive behavioral therapy principles come in to play here because patients may think their pain is working, but they are often mistaken. They don't see the whole picture, or are not reasoning effectively...because of the pain. Obviously, pain clouds jugdment(sic) and reasoning abilities. It also robs one of options- and the ability to imagine other possibilities.

I like the "verbiness" of "persisting" and "resolving." Conceptually, this supports a more interactional as opposed to operational mode of providing therapy.

I don't want to be a hero for my patients." - John Ware PT

Perfect. Pain as verb, not noun. Pain as a natural process (i.e., something that moves along) for which adverbs might be helpful, not as some static something requiring scads of ever more clashing and diametrically opposed, mutually exclusive adjectives, like "normal" and "abnormal."

Thank you John.

Adverb:
1. a word that modifies something other than a noun
2. the word class that qualifies verbs or clauses

Adverbial: a word or group of words function as an adverb