Pain physician Purvez (Managing Chronic Pain in an Age of Addiction) paints a comprehensive picture of the connection between the brain and pain. Purvez has treated patients with chronic pain for more than 20 years and shares his expertise in an accessible and engaging way. Purvez argues that people’s individual responses to pain-management treatments vary significantly, as do individual genetics, thus Western medicine’s current one-treatment-fits-all approach to pain doesn’t work. He’s hopeful that new research will enable people with chronic pain to receive individualized treatment plans and effective therapies that are less addictive than current narcotic drugs. Purvez’s book also contextualizes the issue of pain management by examining humanity’s historical and contemporary understandings of physical pain and analyzing the present-day pain management culture in Western medicine…. Backed by research, which is cited in a comprehensive bibliography, Purvez’s book is highly recommended for clinicians seeking to better understand how to help their patients and for general readers whose own lives have been impacted by pain.

Library Journal, Starred Review

The Brain Behind Pain by Akhtar Purvez is a fascinating treatise on the brain and pain that will keep you engaged for hours!

David S. Younger, MD, DrPH, MPH, MS, Author of The Autoimmune Brain

From his firm foundation in the history of “humanity’s battle against pain,” Dr. Purvez leads us through the maze of facts, fictions, trials and tragedies that comprise our present day universe of pain. The Brain Behind Pain wisely avoids “one size fits all” prescriptions, offering instead a fascinating exploration of pain from biological, psychosocial and epidemiological perspectives.

Rowland G. Hazard, MD, FACP, professor emeritus at Dartmouth Medical School, author of Talking Back