• Patients feel socially isolated.
• Metaphors to make pain understandable.
• Pain as an external enemy. 

Chronic pain patients find it very difficult to put their pain into words or to explain to others how they experience their pain. Often, they describe their pain using metaphors, so that it connects better to the experience of the people surrounding them. Nevertheless, many feel socially isolated, because people in their environment do not understand how pain affects them. This is the conclusion of Australian researchers who conducted focus group interviews with sixteen chronic pain patients.