An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

suggests a combined approach where health is both being not ill, absence of disease, butalso physical fitness, vitality, social relationships, function and psychosocial well being.She takes the health concept further and describes health as biography and a moral identitywhere those who experience ill health view themselves as victims and but also seethemselves as responsible in some way for their plight.2.2.2 The cycle of painPain and discomfort are among the main characteristics of being sick or being called sick.Pain is associated with physical or psychological injury which activates an unpleasantsensation which is highly personal and dependent on the sensitivity of the individual.Nerves carry pain signals to the brain in the form of electrical impulses and the brainresponds to these signals in different ways depending on the situation and the state ofphysical and psychological health of the person. „Pain is a good thing as its fundamentalpurpose is to act as a warning sign to ta action before further damage is done‟(Richardson and Bowden 1999:555). There is however, the subjectivity of pain thatphysicians find hard to measure; in the same way, it is difficult to measure suffering(Richardson and Bowden 1999) relying on the person‟s description of the sensation, hasbeen a staple of religious imagery since at least the time of the Psalms (Swenson 2005).The huge medical literature on pain is summarised in textbooks (Waugh and Grant, 2006,Swearingen, 2006) and literature reviews (Mercandetti and Cohen 2008). They amplydescribe the healing process in three phases: homeostasis, inflammation and proliferation.In a more simplified version, the healing process takes place in two stages, otherwisecalled first and second intention. Healing by first intention requires the wound edges to beapproximated without undue tension. Healing by first intention applies to a clean wound25