Why Don’t We Take Mental Pain as Seriously as We Take Physical Pain?

A psychiatrist explores cultural bias and the history of medicine

Image: Hiroshi Watanabe/Getty Images

One of the first patients I saw in medical school was an elderly man dying of metastatic colon cancer, which had spread to his bones and was excruciatingly painful. I was shocked and heartbroken when I saw him beg the doctor for more pain…