Picturing Pain: how language and metaphors shape health care encounters

In our lives, we all face questions around health, illness and pain, for which we often seek medical care or advice. But however advanced technology is, language remains to first and primary means of giving health care providers access to the issues we’re seeking help for. When doing so, language does more than simply describing symptoms: it shapes how we construct our bodies, make sense of illness experiences, and determine what counts as (appropriate) medical care.

This presentation introduces a project that aims to both examine and support this crucial aspect of clinical communication, operating at the intersection of science, art, and health care. Together with visual artist Octavia Roodt and postdoctoral researcher Ella van Hest, Jana is currently developing images that are visual renditions of metaphors that are used when health care providers and patients talk about chronic pain. Their aim is to eventually format these images so they can serve as tools to support conversations about pain in clinical practice.

In her presentation, Jana will give an overview of the empirical work that underpins this project; talk about the process of coproducing new empirical insights with patients and health care providers during the development of these images; and reflect on how to grapple with the strengths, weaknesses and shortcomings of such an undertaking.

Programme