The therapeutic encounter between being-in-pain and acupuncture: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

Chronic pain is a widespread problem and predicted to rise, yet remains poorly understood. Acupuncture is a frequently used intervention for pain. Acupuncture can be understood as a complex intervention involving ‘specific’ and ‘non-specific’ effects. Given the complexity of acupuncture therapy, and the inherently subjective and multidimensional nature of pain, acupuncture might interact with pain at a multidimensional level, with implications for the therapeutic encounter and how this influences experiences of pain. The aim of this research was to re-examine and thus enhance understandings of how lived experiences of being-in-pain is encountered in acupuncture therapy. Research design and analysis was carried out using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Phenomenology has been widely applied in pain research, yet there is a relative paucity of acupuncture phenomenological studies. An opportunity thus exists to re-examine the complexity of the therapeutic encounter from this perspective. In depth, semi-structured interviews were carried out with a purposive sample of three participants recruited from a private acupuncture clinic. Three superordinate themes explicated the encounter: (1) A journey of becoming a person-in-pain and arriving at acupuncture, (2) The embodied encounter with acupuncture, and (3) Acupuncture as an intersubjective encounter of evolving meanings. Applying a phenomenological perspective revealed self-identity, temporally and socially-constituted meanings, and relationship dynamics as integral to the encounter. Deqi (therapeutic needling) was a complex, temporal, meaningful construct that went beyond established sensory descriptors. Pain alleviation was important but validation and the alleviation of personal suffering often took priority.