Exploring magical thinking in the context of pain.

Abstract

This perspectives article explores magical thinking (which is often dismissed as irrational or pathologized) as a potentially valuable personal orientation and resource for people living with chronic pain: as a way to make more sense of their complex and challenging life experience, psychologically as well as socially. Magical thinking entails a broader acceptance of connectivity between phenomena generally considered to be independent, and it includes symbolic meaning-making acts such as rituals. The authors explicitly exclude in their discussion magical superstitions which involve the conviction that magical acts can directly impact physical reality (such as enabling levitation or turning people into frogs). Drawing on a reflective, interpretive, and conversational methodology, a pain scientist, a nurse researcher, and a writer-practitioner of magical thinking explored how magical thinking functions as a personal orientation and resource that enables symbolic meaning-making and supports emotional regulation and relation with self, others and the wider world. As such, it may be potentially valuable for people living with chronic pain. The article shows that traces of magical thinking can be found within psychology and medicine and invites a broader conversation about how the symbolic and imaginative modes of magical thinking might be valuable in pain care.