There have been anecdotal accounts for centuries of people apparently experiencing little or
no pain in situations that most of us would find excruciating. Yet, western medicine has given
little credence to a patient's ability to modify pain. Instead, we focus on the pharmacological
control of pain. For this reason, the vast majority of research on pain control has
concentrated on peripheral and spinal cord mechanisms of opioid and anti-inflammatory
analgesic therapy. Nevertheless, researchers are beginning to recognize that a variety of …