Table 4.

Neither the physiological nor the psychological explanation provide a consistent sense of control

Subtheme	Patient	Physiological explanation	Patient	Psychological explanation
Sense of control	24	“Well, because this is more of an explanation about how my body works that might impact the injury that I have as opposed to the first one, which is more about my emotional feelings and how that’s impacting it. Although part of that may be true, this is more of a, more something I can hold on to, tangibly.”	7	“I just need to clear my mind of a lot of stuff … so that I won't be stressed out and getting sick … I don’t know how I’m gonna do that, but I’ll try. I never thought about the mind having anything to do with pain… but I guess it does.”
	17	“If I do have more pain than usual or I have pain in spots where I didn’t usually have it, I can explain it with that, and that is kind of reassuring.”	11	“I feel better because this is a way of making the best medicine for myself …”
Lack of control	9	“The pain is always on, so how do you get rid of that pain?”	10	“The [mind-body explanation] is just saying well, it’s emotional pain that can come from something else and that’s not giving me anything.”
Leads to a solution	18	“There are a number of techniques that might be useful to work on this.”	22	“[As you were saying] if your mind is full and you talk to a doctor, you open your heart and [say] everything you want to say, this [will] help you to feel better [rather than to] keep everything in your mind, [which], is not good.”
			20	“I think it’s a good reminder to a lot of people that physical pain is not the only thing going on … I think a lot of people don't even realize that there is a stress and emotional component of the pain. … If you can calm the emotional, mental aspect of it and try to alleviate some of that stress maybe you can hope that you do not put your body in as much physical pain.”
Does not lead to a solution	14	“I know that everything goes to the brain with the nerves and all that but I want you to tell me why it’s doing it and how we are going to fix it. I want to know what's wrong and how am I going to get better.”	24	“I want to hear an explanation about what I can do to make it better.”
	28	“…well then what’s the solution to get it turned off, so that I don’t feel pain?”	10	“It feels very philosophical.”