While there has been increasing interest in recent years in the welfare of farm animals, fish are frequently thought to be different. In many people's perception, fish, with their lack of facial expressions or recognisable communication, are not seen to count when it comes to welfare. Angling is a major sport, and fishing a big industry. Millions of fish are caught on barbed hooks, or left to die by suffocation on the decks of fishing boats. Here, biologist Victoria Braithwaite explores the question of fish pain and fish suffering, explaining what we now understand about fish behaviour, and examining the related ethical questions about how we should treat these animals. She asks why the question of pain in fish has not been raised earlier, indicating our prejudices and assumptions; and argues that the latest and growing scientific evidence would suggest that we should widen to fish the protection currently given to birds and mammals.

Childhood pain is a widespread problem, yet it often goes untreated. Drawing on the latest research, two leading voices on pediatric pain show parents and medical practitioners how to handle children’s pain, from bumps and bruises to chronic illnesses, providing strategies that make a real difference in kids’ lives.

An examination of the two most radical dissociation syndromes of the human pain experience—pain without painfulness and painfulness without pain—and what they reveal about the complex nature of pain and its sensory, cognitive, and behavioral components. In Feeling Pain and Being in Pain, Nikola Grahek examines two of the most radical dissociation syndromes to be found in human pain experience: pain without painfulness and painfulness without pain. Grahek shows that these two syndromes—the complete dissociation of the sensory dimension of pain from its affective, cognitive, and behavioral components, and its opposite, the dissociation of pain's affective components from its sensory-discriminative components (inconceivable to most of us but documented by ample clinical evidence)—have much to teach us about the true nature and structure of human pain experience. Grahek explains the crucial distinction between feeling pain and being in pain, defending it on both conceptual and empirical grounds. He argues that the two dissociative syndromes reveal the complexity of the human pain experience: its major components, the role they play in overall pain experience, the way they work together, and the basic neural structures and mechanisms that subserve them. Feeling Pain and Being in Pain does not offer another philosophical theory of pain that conclusively supports or definitively refutes either subjectivist or objectivist assumptions in the philosophy of mind. Instead, Grahek calls for a less doctrinaire and more balanced approach to the study of mind–brain phenomena.

“[A] powerful account of the sexism cooked into medical care ... will motivate readers to advocate for themselves.”—Publishers Weekly STARRED Review A groundbreaking and feminist work of investigative reporting: Explains why women experience healthcare differently than men Shares the author’s journey of fighting for an endometriosis diagnosis In Pain and Prejudice, acclaimed investigative reporter Gabrielle Jackson takes readers behind the scenes of doctor’s offices, pharmaceutical companies, and research labs to show that—at nearly every level of healthcare—men’s health claims are treated as default, whereas women’s are often viewed as a-typical, exaggerated, and even completely fabricated. The impacts of this bias? Women are losing time, money, and their lives trying to navigate a healthcare system designed for men. Almost all medical research today is performed on men or male mice, making most treatments tailored to male bodies only. Even conditions that are overwhelmingly more common in women, such as chronic pain, are researched on mostly male bodies. Doctors and researchers who do specialize in women’s healthcare are penalized financially, as procedures performed on men pay higher. Meanwhile, women are reporting feeling ignored and dismissed at their doctor’s offices on a regular basis. Jackson interweaves these and more stunning revelations in the book with her own story of suffering from endometriosis, a condition that affects up to 20% of American women but is poorly understood and frequently misdiagnosed. She also includes an up-to-the-minute epilogue on the ways that Covid-19 are impacting women in different and sometimes more long-lasting ways than men. A rich combination of journalism and personal narrative, Pain and Prejudice reveals a dangerously flawed system and offers solutions for a safer, more equitable future.

James Bovard is no fan of Big Government in the US and under the Clinton-Gore administration. In his new book, Bovard looks at Clinton and Gore's record on such abuses and absurdities as taxes, gun control, the Waco fiasco, AmeriCorps, and federal funding of every program from those dealing with disaster relief to those that put on puppet shows in Northern California. He looks at Hillary Clinton's informal role in the government, as well as Newt Gingrich's poor stewardship of the Republican party in its quest for a leaner federal government. In the style that made Lost Rights a classic, Bovard takes us on a sentimental journey through the last eight years. It's a trip no one will want to miss.

"I Feel Your Pain!" by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette, is an up-to-date smorgasbord of 400 stinging, insightful, and hilariously funny satires of American politics and society. These cartoons find the absurd in hot-button issues such as race, religion, foreign policy, violence, drugs, education, and of course, politics, politics, politics. Pat Conroy, in his foreword to "I Feel Your Pain!" captures the spirit of Marlette's cartoons. "Doug Marlette is a prince of mayhem and unrest..".

Challenging our understanding of what it means to be human, Joel Salinas, a Harvard-trained researcher and neurologist at Massachusetts General, shares his experiences with mirror-touch synesthesia, a rare and only recently identified neurological trait that causes him to feel the emotional and physical experiences of other people. Performing a spinal tap, he feels the needle slowly enter his lower back. If a disoriented patient flies into a confused rage, Salinas slips into a similarly agitated physical state, and when a patient dies, he experiences an involuntary ruin—his body starts to feel vacant and lifeless, like a limp balloon. Susceptible to the pain and discomfort of his patients, most of whom suffer from a host of disorders and extreme injuries, Salinas uses his trait to treat their symptoms, almost as if they were his own. At the same time, in his personal life, his mirror touch blurs the boundaries between himself and those close to him until he ends up inextricably entangled, no longer able to differentiate where he ends and someone else begins. Salinas refers to his condition as a kind of compulsory mindfulness, a heightened empathic ability that offers him invaluable clues about how to see and live the world through other people’s perspectives. This heightened sense of awareness is at the center of Mirror Touch. Through his experiences, both in his neurological practice and his personal life, Salinas offers readers insights about mirror-touch synesthesia and how the brain, in its endless wonder, can sometimes perform in a nearly superhuman, extrasensory way. In the process, Salinas reveals the full power and potential of his trait, as well as its thorny complications and often debilitating limitations. Beautifully written with intelligence and compassion and anchored by the latest developments in neurology, psychology, and psychiatry, Mirror Touch is an enthralling and wholly original investigation into the unexplored corners of the brain, where the foundation of human experience and relationships take root—everything it means to think, to feel, and to be.

Imagine an orchestra in your brain. It plays all kinds of harmonious melodies, then pain comes along and the different sections of the orchestra are reduced to a few pain tunes. All pain is real. And for many people it is a debilitating part of everyday life. It is now known that understanding more about why things hurt can actually help people to overcome their pain. Recent advances in fields such as neurophysiology, brain imaging, immunology, psychology and cellular biology have provided an explanatory platform from which to explore pain. In everyday language accompanied by quirky illustrations, Explain Pain discusses how pain responses are produced by the brain: how responses to injury from the autonomic motor and immune systems in your body contribute to pain, and why pain can persist after tissues have had plenty of time to heal. Explain Pain aims to give clinicians and people in pain the power to challenge pain and to consider new models for viewing what happens during pain. Once they have learnt about the processes involved they can follow a scientific route to recovery. The Authors: Dr Lorimer Moseley is Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and the Inaugural Chair in Physiotherapy at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, where he leads research groups at Body in Mind as well as with Neuroscience Research Australia in Sydney. Dr David Butler is an international freelance educator, author and director of the Neuro Orthopaedic Institute, based in Adelaide, Australia. Both authors continue to publish and present widely.

An exploration of why people all over the world love to engage in pain on purpose--from dominatrices, religious ascetics, and ultramarathoners to ballerinas, icy ocean bathers, and sideshow performers Masochism is sexy, human, reviled, worshipped, and can be delightfully bizarre. Deliberate and consensual pain has been with us for millennia, encompassing everyone from Black Plague flagellants to ballerinas dancing on broken bones to competitive eaters choking down hot peppers while they cry. Masochism is a part of us. It lives inside workaholics, tattoo enthusiasts, and all manner of garden variety pain-seekers. At its core, masochism is about feeling bad, then better—a phenomenon that is long overdue for a heartfelt and hilarious investigation. And Leigh Cowart would know: they are not just a researcher and science writer—they’re an inveterate, high-sensation seeking masochist. And they have a few questions: Why do people engage in masochism? What are the benefits and the costs? And what does masochism have to say about the human experience? By participating in many of these activities themselves, and through conversations with psychologists, fellow scientists, and people who seek pain for pleasure, Cowart unveils how our minds and bodies find meaning and relief in pain—a quirk in our programming that drives discipline and innovation even as it threatens to swallow us whole.

For: People experiencing pain'The Explain Pain Handbook: Protectometer' is a personal workbook for people experiencing chronic pain. Based on the most up-to-date research, this handbook is a key element in the Explain Pain toolkit. It introduces the 'Protectometer' - a groundbreaking pain treatment tool - that helps you understand your personal pain formula, identify your DIMs (Danger in Me) and SIMs (Safety in Me) and provides six clear strategies for recovery from pain.