This book offers a carefully argued, conceptually re orienting view of contemporary pain. The author explores chronic pain through the perspectives of pain science, lived experience, systems thinking, and evolutionary perspectives to uncover the forces that contribute to the stickiness of pain. The book introduces the notion of painogenic and salutogenic conditions to clarify how environments, practices, and assumptions shape whether pain persists, positioning pain as a real bodily experience situated within everyday life.

Offering a shift in focus from pathogenesis to salutogenesis, the book examines the limits of additive biopsychosocial explanations and offers an integral perspective to provide a big picture, multi perspective understanding of pain that persists. It clarifies why improvement so often proves difficult to stabilise over time.

Written in an accessible style, this book is enriched with figures and tables. It is valuable reading for academics, researchers and clinicians seeking a deeper understanding of pain that persists, as well as advanced students in health psychology.