UNDERSTANDING AND TREATING PAIN IN ETHNICALLY DIVERSE PATIENTS

A revolution has taken place during the past 25 years in the understan ding and treatment of chronic pain. Psychologists have contributed tre mendously to this revolution. However, the primary psychological model s of pain treatment have failed to adequately integrate the empirical findings and theoretical understanding of the role of ethnic factors. The goal of this paper is to address this problem by demonstrating the importance of understanding ethnic factors in treating pain, providin g an overview of ethnic factors in pain, and proposing guidelines for Clinical Psychologists who treat pain patients from ethnically diverse backgrounds.