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Psychological pain, mental pain, or emotional pain is an unpleasant feeling (a suffering) of a psychological, mental origin. A pioneer in the field of suicidology, Edwin S. Shneidman, described it as "how much you hurt as a human being. It is mental suffering; mental torment." There are numerous ways psychological pain is referred to, using a different word usually reflects an emphasis on a particular aspect of mind life. Technical terms include algopsychalia and psychalgia,Psychalgia: mental distress. Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. But see also psychalgia in the sense of psychogenic pain. but it may also be called mental pain, emotional pain, psychic pain, social pain, spiritual or soul pain,Spiritual pain: 60,000 Google results. Soul pain: 237,000 Google results. or suffering. While these clearly are not equivalent terms, one systematic comparison of theories and models of psychological pain, psychic pain, emotional pain, and suffering concluded that each describe the same profoundly unpleasant feeling. Psychological pain is widely believed to be an inescapable aspect of human existence.
Other descriptions of psychological pain are "a wide range of subjective experiences characterized as an awareness of negative changes in the self and in its functions accompanied by negative feelings", "a diffuse subjective experience ... differentiated from physical pain which is often localized and associated with noxious physical stimuli", and "a lasting, unsustainable, and unpleasant feeling resulting from negative appraisal of an inability or deficiency of the self."
Unmet psychological needs in youth may cause an inability to meet human needs later in life. As a consequence of neglectful parenting, children with unmet psychological needs may be linked to psychotic disorders in childhood throughout life.
In the fields of social psychology and personality psychology, the term social pain is used to denote psychological pain caused by harm or threat to social connection; bereavement, embarrassment, shame and hurt feelings are subtypes of social pain. (2025). 9780521680516, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521680516 From an evolutionary perspective, psychological pain forces the assessment of actual or potential social problems that might reduce the individual's fitness for survival. (1989). 9780896721616, Texas Tech University Press. ISBN 9780896721616 The way people display their psychological pain socially (for example, crying, shouting, moaning) serves the purpose of indicating that they are in need.
The intrapsychic pain experienced by those diagnosed with BPD has been studied and compared to normal healthy controls and to others with major depression, bipolar disorder, substance use disorder, schizophrenia, other personality disorders, and a range of other conditions. Although the excruciatingly painful inner experience of the borderline patient is both unique and perplexing, it is often linked to severe childhood trauma of abuse and neglect. In clinical populations, the rate of suicide of patients with borderline personality disorder is estimated to be 10%, a rate far greater than that in the general population and still considerably greater than for patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, though studies on suicidality in bipolar subjects have found that 4-19% of bipolar patients (mostly untreated) commit suicide. However, 60–70% of patients with borderline personality disorder make suicide attempts, so suicide attempts are far more frequent than completed suicides in patients with BPD.
The intense dysphoria states which patients diagnosed with BPD endure on a regular basis distinguishes them from those with other personality disorders: major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and virtually all known DSM-IV Axis I and Axis II conditions. In a 1998 study entitled "The Pain of Being Borderline: Dysphoric States Specific to Borderline Personality Disorder", 146 diagnosed borderline patients took a 50-item self-report measure test. The conclusions from this study suggest "that the subjective pain of borderline patients may be both more pervasive and more multifaceted than previously recognised and that the overall "amplitude" of this pain may be a particularly good marker for the borderline diagnosis".
Feelings of emptiness are a central problem for patients with personality disturbances. In an attempt to avoid this feeling, these patients employ defences to preserve their fragmentary selves. Feelings of emptiness may be so painful that suicide is considered.
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