Introduction to the “Special Issue on Pain Catastrophizing”

The construct of pain catastrophizing has emerged as playing an important role in pain. This construct has earlier been defined as “…an exaggerated negative orientation toward actual or anticipated pain experience…current conceptualizations most often describe it in terms of appraisal or a set of maladaptive beliefs.” There has also been a great deal of additional research which has demonstrated its heuristic value in areas such as pain-treatment outcomes, genetics research, as well as in the area of brain imaging. The current Special Issue includes some of the most recent studies of pain catastrophizing, and highlights the increasing complexity of this construct, which will need to be better understood and validated for the future development of the most variable overall model of it.