What is your relationship to your pain?
As the final project in process for the Experience Design Certification Program from Odyssey Works, this quick individual experience took participants through an interview with a personification of their pain to start the process of a positive integration of chronic pain into the concept of self.
Heavy stuff, right? See following pages for process, but below are the "quick and dirty" slides from the presentation to external review respondents to complete the year long course. Then, for more explanation, there is the written script of the experience in the form presented at The New Frame at Gibney Studios NYC November 18, 2022. Below the text is a link to the video shown in the temporary viewers. Enjoy!
Heavy stuff, right? See following pages for process, but below are the "quick and dirty" slides from the presentation to external review respondents to complete the year long course. Then, for more explanation, there is the written script of the experience in the form presented at The New Frame at Gibney Studios NYC November 18, 2022. Below the text is a link to the video shown in the temporary viewers. Enjoy!
The final plot:
Mobile Pain Management Clinical Trial
Setting: Participants walk up to a plain table with paper forms and clipboards to fill out. A few chairs are lined up close to the table. They aren’t comfortable or aesthetic. There are cardboard VR viewers and headphones on the table as well as a temporary looking sign that says:
“Patients: Please check in with nurse.”
It is ugly and unaesthetic, but functional and friendly.
This place is a guest in the space itself. It does not control it, but has borrowed it for the afternoon, making do with what can be carried in a box or rolling case. It has been cleaned, cleared, lovingly prepped. It is serviceable and safe. No frills. The only character given is in the nurse’s cheerful scrubs and a pin on her ID holder that speaks to her open friendliness. She is aggressively nice, she sounds like Dolly Parton- a soft intelligence with nothing to prove. Just love and capability. She is also here to do a job, to keep you safe and clean while you do your work on yourself. The space is as tidy as it can be and equipment is sterilized, but not particularly engineered or modern.
Invitation: The nurse greets people pleasantly, "baby are you my 3:15?" hands them the clipboard with instructions to “fill that front page out for me, second page has some important information and that third page don't even worry about it right now.” She respects your privacy. “Let me know if you have any questions.” When you ask questions, she tends to reply, "Sweetie that means whatever you want it to mean, but maybe think about..."
The form has these questions:
First Name (required):
Reason for referral:
Choose a word below:
Please read and sign below (required): I ________________ understand that this treatment is experimental and I consent a) to lie down on the floor, b) to follow directions of the nurse, c) to share my results with anyone who will listen. I understand that if the treatment becomes unduly uncomfortable, I am free to signal the nurse to retrieve the equipment and lead me to the post-snack area to relax and recover. I will not hold the Threlkeld-Robb Clinic responsible for annoyance, boredom, or disruptive realizations I may experience as a result of this treatment.
An info sheet is attached to the form:
Please leave your bags and other possessions with the nurse. They will be safe. You are also safe. Let her lead you to a place on the floor, and stretch out flat as you can. If you cannot lay flat on the floor, a chair can be provided but the experience is most optimal if you are prone. You will not be there long, so unless absolutely necessary, please do not roll shirts or things into padding. You may give wallets or other pocket items to the nurse for safe keeping. Once you are settled, you will begin the video, the nurse can help you. You are free to move, but there will be others on the ground around you, so it’s best if you don’t rise and walk about. You will be given space to move arms and legs like a snow angel around you. You will be given instructions at the end of the treatment as to how to signal the nurse and she will come get you. Please wait for your safety and the safety of your fellow patients.
Entering the Space: The nurse invites you to sit in the chair while you fill out the form, then if you choose to stretch out, "but your booty right there" so participants don't bump into furniture. Patients will be fitted with a headset and headphones and led to a spot in the performance space, “the clinic.” They are helped to lie down, get settled, and then how to start the video and adjust sound after a tester video to gauge sound.
Treatment: A video plays of progressive images inspired by “pain,” they dissolve in and out in a regular pattern similar to respiration. The colors and textures are soothing but also have an acidic edge. This isn’t sharp pain, but dull and persistent. This is pain that follows you or feels like a parasite, or an apprehensive memory. Just as you realize the object, it floats away.
As the video plays, a quiet, low, soothing voice asks leading questions over a repetitive heartbeat sound meant to rock them into deep contemplation without irritation at the repetition. If you try, you can also train your heart to this rhythm and your neural transmissions to a calm, clear pace with nothing on its to-do list.
Video narrative:
What hurts you today?
What hurt you yesterday?
What will hurt tomorrow?
What does the hurt take from you?
What do you call the hurt?
Say its name.
Call it forth from where you kennel it.
What does it look like?
How does it greet you?
Does it love you?
Is it familiar to you?
When did it come to you?
Why did it come to you?
Why does it stay?
What does it want to eat?
What does it want to drink?
What does it want to do?
What does it need?
Have you talked before?
What does it call itself?
Say its name.
Do you listen to it when it speaks?
Let it speak.
What does it say?
Does it listen to you when you speak?
Talk to it.
What do you say?
Does it think it is part of you?
Is it part of you?
Invite it in.
Sit with it. How do you move forward from here?
Ending: When prompted by the video, patients raise their hand, the nurse will go over and help them remove the equipment, sit up, and eventually rise to their feet. She leads them to a chair where they get to choose a snack from the basket and receive a juicebox. They fill out pretty much the same questions and the nurse reviews them with a brief assessment and some notes. They remain until they are ready to leave.
Setting: Participants walk up to a plain table with paper forms and clipboards to fill out. A few chairs are lined up close to the table. They aren’t comfortable or aesthetic. There are cardboard VR viewers and headphones on the table as well as a temporary looking sign that says:
“Patients: Please check in with nurse.”
It is ugly and unaesthetic, but functional and friendly.
This place is a guest in the space itself. It does not control it, but has borrowed it for the afternoon, making do with what can be carried in a box or rolling case. It has been cleaned, cleared, lovingly prepped. It is serviceable and safe. No frills. The only character given is in the nurse’s cheerful scrubs and a pin on her ID holder that speaks to her open friendliness. She is aggressively nice, she sounds like Dolly Parton- a soft intelligence with nothing to prove. Just love and capability. She is also here to do a job, to keep you safe and clean while you do your work on yourself. The space is as tidy as it can be and equipment is sterilized, but not particularly engineered or modern.
Invitation: The nurse greets people pleasantly, "baby are you my 3:15?" hands them the clipboard with instructions to “fill that front page out for me, second page has some important information and that third page don't even worry about it right now.” She respects your privacy. “Let me know if you have any questions.” When you ask questions, she tends to reply, "Sweetie that means whatever you want it to mean, but maybe think about..."
The form has these questions:
First Name (required):
Reason for referral:
- Acute pain
- Chronic pain
- Existential pain
- Pain in the ass
- Ennui
- Homesickness
- Painfully slow foot traffic
- Great pains taken
- Terminal curiosity
- Other: _____________________
Choose a word below:
- Twingy
- Twangy
- Wobbing
- Stabby
- Haunting
- Clicking
- Picking
- Other: _______________________
Please read and sign below (required): I ________________ understand that this treatment is experimental and I consent a) to lie down on the floor, b) to follow directions of the nurse, c) to share my results with anyone who will listen. I understand that if the treatment becomes unduly uncomfortable, I am free to signal the nurse to retrieve the equipment and lead me to the post-snack area to relax and recover. I will not hold the Threlkeld-Robb Clinic responsible for annoyance, boredom, or disruptive realizations I may experience as a result of this treatment.
An info sheet is attached to the form:
Please leave your bags and other possessions with the nurse. They will be safe. You are also safe. Let her lead you to a place on the floor, and stretch out flat as you can. If you cannot lay flat on the floor, a chair can be provided but the experience is most optimal if you are prone. You will not be there long, so unless absolutely necessary, please do not roll shirts or things into padding. You may give wallets or other pocket items to the nurse for safe keeping. Once you are settled, you will begin the video, the nurse can help you. You are free to move, but there will be others on the ground around you, so it’s best if you don’t rise and walk about. You will be given space to move arms and legs like a snow angel around you. You will be given instructions at the end of the treatment as to how to signal the nurse and she will come get you. Please wait for your safety and the safety of your fellow patients.
Entering the Space: The nurse invites you to sit in the chair while you fill out the form, then if you choose to stretch out, "but your booty right there" so participants don't bump into furniture. Patients will be fitted with a headset and headphones and led to a spot in the performance space, “the clinic.” They are helped to lie down, get settled, and then how to start the video and adjust sound after a tester video to gauge sound.
Treatment: A video plays of progressive images inspired by “pain,” they dissolve in and out in a regular pattern similar to respiration. The colors and textures are soothing but also have an acidic edge. This isn’t sharp pain, but dull and persistent. This is pain that follows you or feels like a parasite, or an apprehensive memory. Just as you realize the object, it floats away.
As the video plays, a quiet, low, soothing voice asks leading questions over a repetitive heartbeat sound meant to rock them into deep contemplation without irritation at the repetition. If you try, you can also train your heart to this rhythm and your neural transmissions to a calm, clear pace with nothing on its to-do list.
Video narrative:
What hurts you today?
What hurt you yesterday?
What will hurt tomorrow?
What does the hurt take from you?
What do you call the hurt?
Say its name.
Call it forth from where you kennel it.
What does it look like?
How does it greet you?
Does it love you?
Is it familiar to you?
When did it come to you?
Why did it come to you?
Why does it stay?
What does it want to eat?
What does it want to drink?
What does it want to do?
What does it need?
Have you talked before?
What does it call itself?
Say its name.
Do you listen to it when it speaks?
Let it speak.
What does it say?
Does it listen to you when you speak?
Talk to it.
What do you say?
Does it think it is part of you?
Is it part of you?
Invite it in.
Sit with it. How do you move forward from here?
Ending: When prompted by the video, patients raise their hand, the nurse will go over and help them remove the equipment, sit up, and eventually rise to their feet. She leads them to a chair where they get to choose a snack from the basket and receive a juicebox. They fill out pretty much the same questions and the nurse reviews them with a brief assessment and some notes. They remain until they are ready to leave.