A01=Joe Wood
Author_Joe Wood
Category=DSBH
Category=DSK
Cicely Saunders
death and dying
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
health humanities
medical humanities
narrative medicine
the body
total pain
Product details
- ISBN 9781399531078
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 31 May 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Introduced in 1964, Cicely Saunders’ term ‘total pain’ has come to epitomise the holistic ethos of hospice and palliative care. It communicates how a dying person’s pain can be a whole overwhelming experience, not only physical but also psychological, social and spiritual. ‘Total pain’ clearly summarises Saunders’ whole-person, multidisciplinary outlook but is it a phenomenon, an intervention framework, a care approach – or something else? This book disregards the idea that Saunders’ phrase has one coherent meaning and instead explores the multiple interpretations now current in contemporary professional discourse. Using close reading of Saunders’ extensive publications, as well as archival evidence and Saunders’ own personal library, it situates the current usage of ‘total pain’ in wider histories of clinical holism, questions its similarity to later ideas of narrative medicine, and explores how it might express the ambiguities of bearing witness to pain and vulnerability when someone is dying.
Joe Wood is currently an Affiliate Researcher at King’s College London. He has worked in the English department at King’s and as part of the Glasgow End of Life Studies Group at the University of Glasgow. His work on Cicely Saunders and narrative at the end of life has led to collaborative work with St Christopher’s Hospice and the Royal College of Nursing.
