Soothing your child's pain: from teething and tummy aches to acute illnesses and injuries--how to understand the causes and ease the hurt

389 Pages·1998·0.82 MB·English

by  Kenneth Gorfinkle

Soothing Your Child's Pain : From Teething
and Tummy Aches to Acute Illnesses and
title:
Injuries--how to Understand the Causes and
Ease the Hurt
author: Gorfinkle, Kenneth.
publisher: NTC Contemporary
isbn10 | asin: 0809232553
print isbn13: 9780809232550
ebook isbn13: 9780071397926
language: English
subject Pain in children--Popular works.
publication date: 1998
lcc: RJ365.G67 1998eb
ddc: 618.92
subject: Pain in children--Popular works.
Page I
Soothing Your Child's Pain
From Teething and Tummy Aches to Acute Illnesses and
Injuries
How to Understand the Causes and Ease the Hurt
Kenneth Gorfinkle, Ph.D.
CONTEMPORARY BOOKS
Page II
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gorfinkle, Kenneth.
Soothing your child's pain: from teething and tummy aches to
acute illnesses and injurieshow to understand the causes and
ease the hurt / Kenneth Gorfinkle.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8442-3255-3
1. Pain in childrenPopular works. I. Title.
RJ365.G67 1997
618.92dc21 97-27955
CIP
Interior design by Amy Yu
Published by Contemporary Books
An imprint of NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company
4255 West Touhy Avenue, Lincolnwood (Chicago), Illinois 60646-
1975 U.S.A.
Copyright © 1998 by Kenneth Gorfinkle, Ph.D.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in
a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
permission of NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company.
Printed in the United States of America
International Standard Book Number: 0-8092-3255-3
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Page III
This book is dedicated to
the hundreds of children who have allowed me
to help them heal their pain.
Page V
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments VII
Introduction IX
How to Use This Book XIII
Section I: Background Information 1
1. Questions Often Asked About Pain in Children 3
2. Centuries of Neglect/Recent Developments 11
Section II: What Is Pain? 21
3. A Working Definition of Pain 23
4. Why We Need Pain 31
5. Phenomenology of Pain: What Your Child Feels 45
Section III: Painful Events in a Child's Life 63
6. Birth 65
7. Early Feeding, Hunger Pangs, and Colic 69
8. A Tale of Two Circumcisions 77
9. Teething Pain 83
Page VI
10. Immunizations and Other Painful Procedures 89
11. Headaches 103
12. Abdominal Pain 107
13. Dental Care 119
Section IV: How to Alleviate Your Child's Pain 135
14. Assessing Your Child's Pain: In Context 137
15. How to Make Your Child Feel Better 163
Empathy and Comforting 164
Magic and Ritual in Everyday Healing 175
Taking Care of Yourself 180
Distraction 188
Relaxation 197
Using Imagination and Fantasy 204
Hypnotic Suggestion 211
Preparing for Painful Procedures 214
Setting Limits During Invasive Procedures: Imposing 222
Just Enough Authority
16. Using Medications 229
17. Alternative and Complementary Approaches to Pain 237
Concluding Remarks 247
Suggested Readings 249
Index 251
Page VII
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A number of people guided my professional career toward caring for
the medically ill and people suffering from pain. Without their
encouragement over the past several years, this book could not have
been written. At the Veterans Hospital in Manhattan in 1983, David
Ruhland introduced me to the field of behavioral medicine and taught
me basic skills in caring for U.S. veterans with chronic pain
syndrome. At Memorial Sloan-Keetering Cancer Center in New York,
Bill Redd, Paul Jacobsen, and Sharon Manne opened my eyes to the
necessity of alleviating pain and suffering in children with cancer.
Thank you to Dee Jones, Tom Moulton, Lenny Wechsler, Kara Kelly,
and Michael Wiener of the Department of Pediatric Oncology at
Babies and Children's Hospital and especially to Penny Buschman
Gemma, Jim Garvin, and Ria Hawks for their strong advocacy for the
care of children's pain.
Thanks to Boris Rubenstein and Jonathan Slater for bringing me
aboard the Child Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry Service, where I am
confronted with and challenged by some of the most unusual and
difficult pain problems afflicting children.
Page VIII
Much of my work at Babies and Children's Hospital and Columbia-
Presbyterian was made possible by the generous support of the
Nathaniel Wharton Fund, the Henry van Ameringen Foundation, and
the Art Works Project.
I wish to acknowledge the ongoing support of the Behavioral
Medicine Program at Columbia University, specifically Ethan
Gorenstein, Richard Sloan, Kenneth Frank, Kenneth Greenspan, Dan
Seidman, and Don Kornfeld. They allowed me to carve out the
necessary time to get this book to print. They have been my strongest
cheering section.
Thank you very much to Kara Leverte, my editor at Contemporary
Books. Her suggestions and ideas came from her heart and from her
life experience mothering her own little ones. Her intuition about what
the book needed to aid mothers and fathers everywhere was
tremendously helpful.
Many thanks to Ron Taffel, Michael Levi, and Carole Wolfe Korngold
and K. T. Korngold for reading and making thoughtful comments on
the emerging manuscript.
A special thanks to Loretta Barrett, my literary agent, who
"discovered" me while I was giving a lecture on pediatric pain. It was
Loretta's vision, her personal investment in carrying the idea to
fruition, and her ongoing coaching of this neophyte writer that kept
me inspired to write and write.
Finally, I thank Doris Ullendorff, my wife, mother of our children, and
a great kisser of boo-boos for her ideas, anecdotes, thoughtful
criticism, and her love. She keeps me going even when times get
tough.