Negotiating the Social Self in Chronic Spinal Pain: A Qualitative Study

In interviews with 30 people living with chronic spinal pain, about half reproduced general-population chronic pain representations, shaping judgments of simulation or inadequate effort in others.

• Why it matters: Chronic spinal pain is experienced within social settings where shared beliefs and interactions can threaten identity and agency, yet the negotiation of these social meanings is not well described.
• What they did: The authors analyzed 30 semi-structured interviews using constructivist grounded theory with initial, focused, and theoretical coding to derive categories and a central process.
• The result: Five categories and a central process—maintaining and rebuilding the social self—show how participants navigated relational threats across clinical, occupational, and personal contexts, informing rehabilitation to address social dimensions.

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