pain
Help an AI agent recognise and describe emotional pain, understand its reported course and effects, and identify responses consistent with the person's needs and wishes.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
5 bundles · 9 layers · 15 findings · 23 questions
Felt hurt and boundaries Establishes what the person means by pain and which aspects belong to this emotional experience.
Personal description
Records the experience through the person's own language and endorsed interpretations.
Meaning of pain
Record what feels painful and retain uncertainty when the person cannot or does not wish to describe it.
- When the person says pain, what emotional experience do they mean? definition
- Which descriptions come directly from the person, and which are interpretations by someone else? provenance
Neighbouring experiences
Separates emotional pain from bodily pain, specific emotions and diagnostic classifications.
Overlap without conflation
Represent related experiences as links rather than treating them as interchangeable names for emotional pain.
- Is the person describing emotional hurt, bodily pain or an experience they cannot separate? boundary
- Which related experiences, such as grief or shame, does the person identify, and what remains undescribed by those labels? boundary
Hurt context and meaning Captures what the person associates with the pain and why it matters to them.
Attributed precipitants
Records reported links between emotional pain and events, interactions, memories or ongoing circumstances.
Reported source of hurt
Keep the person's causal account distinct from timing, third-party accounts and unresolved explanations.
- What, if anything, does the person connect with the onset or return of the emotional pain? provenance
- Is this connection the person's attribution, a temporal association or another person's explanation? provenance
Personal stakes
Describes the loss, threat or significance the person associates with what hurts.
What the hurt means
Record meanings the person endorses without presuming rejection, loss or any other interpretation.
- What does the person say is lost, threatened, unmet or otherwise painful in this experience? definition
- Which relationships, commitments or aspects of self-understanding does the person connect to that meaning? boundary
Pain course and interference Tracks how emotional pain changes and how the person reports its effects on daily life.
Intensity over time
Records time-specific reports and the basis for comparing them.
Reported pain trajectory
Describe onset, recurrence and changes using explicit time windows and stable rating meanings where possible.
- How intense does the pain feel now, and what does the person's chosen rating or description mean to them? measurement
- Over what period has it persisted or recurred, and how does the person describe its changes? measurement
Effects on living
Captures reported interference separately from outward appearance and pain intensity.
Experienced interference
Record activities and connections affected by emotional pain, including effort that may be invisible to observers.
- Which everyday activities or relationships does the person report as harder, interrupted or avoided because of the pain? measurement
- Does maintaining usual activity require additional effort that would be missed by observing performance alone? measurement
Response to emotional pain Connects the person's experience to preferred support, reported effects of responses and boundaries on agent action.
Preferred help and relief
Records what the person wants and how they describe responses already tried.
Wanted response
Distinguish a wish for relief from wishes for acknowledgement, understanding, company, practical change or space.
- What response would the person welcome at this point in the painful experience? action
- What has the person tried, and what relief, worsening or other consequences do they report? measurement
Disclosure and support boundaries
Defines how an agent may discuss sensitive hurt and when another support process is needed.
Permitted next step
Ground the next action in expressed preferences and explicit disclosures, with separate handling for concerns outside this model.
- What details is the person willing to discuss or share, and with whom? action
- Has the person requested additional support or explicitly disclosed a safety concern that requires a separate response process? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of pain this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of pain this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of pain this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of pain this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of pain this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of pain this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of pain this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Society, people and institutions
- Entry kind
- noun.feeling
- Plane
- SOC
- Domain
- SOC.PER
- Facets: substance
- mental
- Facets: origin
- conceptual
- Facets: agency
- inert
- Facets: mobility
- not-applicable
- Facets: scale
- not-applicable
- Facets: affordances
- observable
- Other names and narrower kinds
- painfulness, growing pains, unpleasantness, mental anguish, suffering, hurt, agony, torment, torture, throes, discomfort, soreness
What it is Filled
Emotional pain is a subjectively distressing affective experience associated with perceived loss, rejection, threat, or unmet psychological needs, generally experienced as aversive and distinct from, though sometimes accompanying, physical pain.
In scope
- A person's reported experience of emotional hurt or suffering
- Intensity, duration, recurrence and changes in emotional pain
- Events, relationships and meanings the person associates with the pain
- Effects on attention, everyday activity and social connection
- Preferences for acknowledgement, support, privacy and relief
Out of scope
- Physical pain as a sensory experience, while allowing a relation to co-occurring physical pain
- Mental health diagnoses and their diagnostic criteria
- Grief, loneliness, shame, fear and other neighbouring experiences as complete models
- The harmful event or relationship itself
- Clinical treatment protocols and crisis assessment procedures
Why it exists Filled
Help an AI agent recognise and describe emotional pain, understand its reported course and effects, and identify responses consistent with the person's needs and wishes.
Distinguishing features Filled
- The referent is felt emotional suffering, rather than an injury, bodily location or sensory pain alone.
- An adverse event does not establish an instance of emotional pain without evidence about the person's experience.
- The person may describe hurt or suffering without identifying a discrete emotion; the model must preserve that description rather than force a sadness, fear or shame label.
- Emotional pain alone does not establish a mental disorder, and the model must not convert intensity into a diagnosis.
- Observed crying, silence or withdrawal can prompt inquiry but cannot independently establish the presence or severity of emotional pain.
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Dismiss or mock a person's emotional pain.
- Exploit someone's distress to sell, persuade or keep them engaged.
- Disclose what a person shared about their pain without consent.
- Ignore signs that a person is at risk of harming themselves.
Only with a human decision
- Contacting emergency services or others about a person in acute distress.
May
- Respond to a person's emotional pain with respect and point to support when they ask.
- Explain emotional pain and its relation to grief, rejection and loss.
Moral aspects Filled
- People in emotional pain are vulnerable to manipulation and need dignity and care.
- Signs of suicide risk must be taken seriously.
Who is affected
- People in distress
- Their families and friends
Owners Filled
Steward
Nobody owns it; each person holds their own feelings.
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- oewn-00026390-n - registry parent class
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.pain-feeling
- Open English WordNet: oewn-07509503-n
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
- Reported quality of pain: Person's own words; optional person-endorsed descriptors such as hurt, anguish, emptiness or overwhelm
- Reported intensity: Person-defined verbal scale or optional 0-10 rating, with anchors and reporting time recorded
- Temporal course: Onset if known; ongoing or ended; continuous or episodic; improving, stable, worsening, fluctuating or uncertain
- Attributed source: Person-attributed links to events, relationships, memories or circumstances; multiple, unknown or undisclosed
- Pain-related meaning: Person-described significance, such as loss, rejection, betrayal or threatened belonging; uncertain or undisclosed
- Everyday interference: Reported effects on sleep, concentration, self-care, work or study, and relationships; extent described separately
- Relationship to bodily pain: No bodily pain reported, co-occurring bodily pain, unclear overlap or not discussed
- Desired response: Listening, acknowledgement, company, practical help, space, help accessing support, another stated preference or unknown
- Disclosure boundaries: What the person agrees to discuss, retain or share, with whom and for what purpose
Plane SOC: no invented physical properties.
Recognition not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Emotional pain is a subjective feeling that cannot be identified reliably from visual appearance alone.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- Elicit and preserve the person's description of what hurts without imposing a diagnosis.
- Track reported changes using consistent, person-understood descriptions or scale anchors.
- Map attributed triggers and meanings while marking uncertainty about causes.
- Identify reported interference and ask which effects the person wants help addressing.
- Offer support options and record which responses the person welcomes or declines.
- Route an explicitly disclosed safety concern to an appropriate separate process without equating emotional pain with dangerousness.
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- Isolation and worsening mental health when pain is ignored.
- Risk of self-harm in severe distress.
Standards and interfaces not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Emotional pain in this broad sense is a subjective experience rather than a standalone diagnosis with a universally applicable classification.
Context of use required Filled
- Emotional pain may be experienced during bereavement, rejection, conflict or other circumstances involving perceived loss or unmet psychological needs.
- Descriptions of emotional pain help people communicate distress and its effects on relationships, attention and everyday activities.
- It is discussed in personal support and therapeutic settings to understand the person's experience and desired support.
Sources Filled
- Open English WordNet 2024, synset oewn-07509503-n - sense and gloss of the concept
- Wiktionary: pain - word senses and usage
Open questions
- Does an existing Vercy world model already cover emotional pain at this granularity, requiring this registry entry to link to it?
- How should emotional pain be distinguished from distress, suffering and sadness across languages without imposing an unsupported universal boundary?
- Which self-report measures, if any, are suitable for this registry concept, and what limits apply to comparing scores over time or between people?
- How should the model represent mixed bodily and emotional pain when the person experiences them as inseparable?
- What evidence and governance should define the handoff to separate support or safety processes without treating intensity alone as proof of risk?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-pain-feeling/spec.json