Most would agree that it is probably impossible to “reason with” people who are in pain since they don’t often act in a manner that you would expect (read “normal”). The trouble, though, is that often times you can’t see their pain, and that a lot of people today seem to be in it. It is no wonder why you might have noticed that so many people seem to “act strangely” these days.
See: http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2009/04/supersense/
There were a few tidbits about how brains may be wired to perceive physical and emotional pain.
Which article Geoff?
It’s an On Point radio episode, “Believing the Unbelievable” I heard recently. In the middle, cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist Bruce Hood described the varying abilities of different animals, including humans, to sense physical and emotional pain in others, and how the parts of the brain that govern those abilities might have evolved.