Encountering Pain...is influenced by memories and it might be possible to look back in one's memory to find a point where pain was less critical or possibly did not even exist. There may be other circumstances where pain arises because a new experience awakens the memory of past trauma. The area of memory is critical to the artist who is nervously attempting to keep traces of her body while at the same time considering the perception of collective memory. The body experiences a crisis as it is intimidated by the possibility of forgetting. Memory has an important part to play as an essential perception of one's wellbeing, something that has often been lost when pain is experienced. Pain is closely associated with uncertainty and this is difficult to consider. The positive thing is that on stage there is no place for that uncertainty. It is possible that art will enable us to convey that feeling again, operating through personification as a means of awakening memory. Pain can often result in bodily fragmentation so that a person in pain has a body that is essentially fragmented. Yet choosing to present and show this inner fragmentation mostly motivates and then empowers me as an artist....by voicing it (as medical interpreter) is a strange experience.A foreign pain goes through your body, softens and darkens your voice and leaves behind its bitter taste.Encountering Pain... ...is an individual experience, it can be all consuming and yet invisible, and when you are in pain you are the only one that can really communicate that pain. So encountering pain makes you vulnerable to miscommunication, because you need to communicate something that could be quite complex, when your ability to articulate your need for relief is compromised by the nature of your pain....in any form can feel like being compressed in a shrinking iron box in which one is entirely alone. Serious pain dominates every conscious moment, and into dreams as well.Pain comes in many forms, sudden, like painshock, or slow and intensifying, with many distinctions in between. Graphic images and photographs are the most descriptive ways of illustrating different kinds of pain to anyone with imagination, and so much more helpful than asking a person to pick a number from 1 to 10. All schools should have these paincards. They transcend language and culture differences, and behavioural differences of all kinds.Living with pain, stepping on from encountering pain, is unique to each individual. If people can understand what causes it in its different forms, it should be possible to endure and overcome much of itjust as one tries to explain it to children as they grow to learn about pain. The importance of pain conferences/seminars/workshops is the sharing of experiences. This can diminish the awful sense of isolation brought on by pain. Encouraging feelings of identity with others, and then the ability and courage to discuss and explore ways of reducing pain in so many forms.Encountering pain? The thought alone? I don't know. ContEnts ix Contents List of figures ...