It has been feedback such as the following from participants, professionals, visitors to the exhibitions and the press which encouraged us to develop the work further. Once the future trials have been analysed we hope to set up a website disseminating the findings and providing a forum for contirubutions from other physicians and chronic pain sufferers who have not taken part in these trials or not had access to pain management programmes such as INPUT.

Health Professionals' response
'Brilliant dialogues which should be compiled into a book and made available to all junior doctors and medical students. This collaboration is ingenious and unique and its resulting images will help to improve the recognition and care of pain sufferers.' (Professor Brian Hurwitz MD FRCP FRCGP, D’Oyly Carte Professor of Medicine & the Arts, King’s College, London)

‘For me it is clear that adding a visual dimension to the narrative can aid communication of much of what somehow needs to be communicated by those with unspeakable pain, but yet cannot be said with words.'
(Charles E.Pither, Consultant Pain Specialist, St Thomas’ Hospital, Medical Director, INPUT pain management unit, St Thomas’ Hospital)

‘This insightful and creative contribution to the tradition of visualization in medicine releases bearers of chronic pain from the dark, sequestered inwardness in which they too often dwell … A therapeutic communication is set in motion that makes sufferers more effectively eloquent about the encompassing, tyrannical reality of their pain, and that enlightens health professionals to whom their care is entrusted’
(Professor Renee C. Fox)

'I have been a doctor for 14 years. I have had the best insight ever into the patient’s experience of pain. More doctors should see this exhibition’
(visitor to the exhibition)

‘A wonderful exhibition, bring the undergraduates here to truly understand pain. I am glad to see emotional pain enter the debate at last. I have been a doctor for 31 years, I feel exceptionally privileged to have been allowed such an open and honest insight into someone else’s pain. As a doctor in training I feel it will help me to understand and help my future patients'

Chronic Pain Sufferers' response
'I have always found it hard to explain my pain to doctors. You have to explain it so that they can understand it, …I have found this really beneficial. It is a wonderful idea.' (participating patient)

‘When I first saw the images that Deborah and I produced together I felt a shiver of recognition mixed with feelings of anger and sadness. But for the first time I was able to point at something and say ‘that’s my pain’’(participating patient)

‘This exhibition will liberate loads of people like me who have been suffering alone.’ (visitor to the exhibition)

‘as a chronic pain sufferer myself, I feel in tune with every image’ (visitor to the exhibition)

‘the red hot wire speaks to me’ (vistitor to the exhibition)

‘through you I was able to forgive my doctor’ (visitor to the exhibition)

‘thank you for giving pain a voice. This will be incredibly valuable to me’ (visitor to the exhibition)

‘Today is the last of a 4 week stay at INPUT for Pain Management and this exhibition puts into words a lot of what I have felt and tried to explain about pain.’ (visitor to the exhibition)

Artist’s response
'Deborah Padfield’s remarkable photographs, made in collaboration with pain sufferers, take us on a journey into pain – an intensive experience most of us would prefer to avoid but all of us will at sometime endure. Her pictures intrigue, fascinate and repel in equal measure; they are sure to stimulate discussion not just among those who work with people in pain but also among those photographers attempting to apply imaginative insight to the human condition.'
(Gina Glover, photographer and founder of Photofusion)

‘the collaborative process that emerged convinced me of the value of involving the subject and their experience in the image-making process. It acted as a catalyst, not only for sufferers in returning to them a sense of control so frequently lost after years of medical investigation, but in extending the boundaries of my own photographic practice’ (Deborah Padfield)

‘As a photographer and parent of a chronic pain sufferer, this has indeed been quite an experience. Your excellent photographic technique, and artistry and understanding of the subject has really come together in an incredible work. I do hope it will be published and will gain recognition to promote an understanding of pain. Many thanks.’

‘I studied photography but it is a long time since I’ve been to an exhibition and felt truly interested and affected by it as I was by this’

‘thank you for expressing my pain and helping me with my art’ (visitor to the exhibition)

'It is work that makes you think – and feel – and as an artist I can only try to make work with as much relevance’ (artist/visitor to the exhibition)