Entre désir de ne plus souffrir et passion douloureuse : l'exemple de la chirurgie corticale à visée antalgique

Patients who come to consult at the Multidisciplinary Pain Center have been suffering from refractory chronic pain for several years. The patients, more often than not, have been disappointed by the results of previous treatments and feel misunderstood and isolated. The encounter with professionals within a interdisciplinary team specializing in the treatment of pain, may reactivate the expectation of a magical cure. The expectation is even greater when the perspective of an innovative treatment seems possible. This article considers the ambivalence between the passionate aspect of over-invested pain and an impassioned demand to suppress it. There is a need to examine the complexity of a desire, which manifests itself through a complaint and the request that the refractive pain should be suppressed. The cortical stimulation, aimed to produce an analgesic effect generating hope almost impossible to satisfy among these subjects suffering from chronic pain, illustrates the ambivalence between passion, request, expectation and desire.