Childhood, Pain and Emotion

This innovative work explores the objectification of childhood pain in British medical discourse from the dawn of Darwinism to the advent of the welfare state. Fernández-Fontecha examines the relationship between the experience of pain and its social and medical perception, demonstrating how the child in pain came to be perceived.

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Situated between the history of pain, history of childhood and history of emotions, this innovative work explores cultural understandings of children's pain, from the 1870s to the end of the Second World War. Focusing on British medical discourse, Leticia Fernández-Fontecha examines the relationship between the experience of pain and its social and medical perception, looking at how pain is felt, seen and performed in contexts such as the hospital, the war nursery and the asylum. By means of a comparative study of views in different disciplines – physiology, paediatrics, psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis – this work demonstrates the various ways in which the child in pain came to be perceived. This context is vital to understanding current practices and beliefs surrounding childhood pain, and the role that children play in the construction of adult worlds.