Sure to be welcomed by the thousands suffering persistent pain, this volume explores what physicians often ignore—how psychological and social issues can influence health, illness, pain, and recovery.

"Pain is everywhere and everyone is talking about it," says Dr. Hillel Finestone, M.D., a researcher and rehabilitation specialist whose work has been featured in publications as diverse as The Lancet, and USA Today. The key to understanding causes and solutions for many apparently mysterious, recurring aches, he explains, lies in understanding the mind-body relationship and the "real meaning" behind symptoms with no immediately obvious cause.

Taking the reader into several diagnostic sessions to illustrate what he sees as a "detective" process to find the source of pain, Finestone explains how psychological and social issues can influence health and healing, for better or worse. Low back and neck pain, fibromyalgia and even work related pains are delved into.In addition to vignettes that illustrate the ideas discussed and show dramatic incidences of how healing the mind can also heal the body, Finestone uses unique and useful diagrams which explain how mind and body are physiologically connected and reactive to each other.

In these pages, readers can follow Dr, Finestone through patient sessions and understand, step by step, how the "pain detective" works to help his patients—and perhaps his readers, too—find lasting relief.