Maxime Rovère

École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Institut d’Histoire des Représentations et des Idées dans les Modernités (IHRIM, UMR 5317), France

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What does ‘I am in pain’ mean? Diving into interactions at the boundaries of the self

The present paper explores the dialogical functioning of a statement that is supposed to describe a state (‘I am in pain’). It argues that this sentence reveals a dynamic, or rather the disruption of a dynamic which it defines as the work of ‘subjectivation.’ To support this claim, the author shows that the sentence relates to a situation that remains partially obscure to the subject, although it can be simplified through scientific objectification. Leaving aside the functionalist view that pain always serves a purpose, the study establishes a circularity between the experience and the subject of the experience which, under certain conditions, can lead to failed subjectivation. In such cases, the verbal expression (or ‘complaint’) takes on a prescriptive dimension that demands a response, the most appropriate of which asserts performatively, in the plural: ‘we exist, we survive.’

Key words: pain; suffering; complaint; care; subjectivation; interaction