Abstract
Pain is an individual and purely subjective experience. Pain processing depends on both somatosensory and emotional brain areas (e.g., the limbic system). Therefore, pain is never a purely sensory perception, but always includes emotional determinants. Finally, the family and other social contexts of the child are important determinants of pain perception. Hence, in order to better understand the origin and perpetuation of pain disorders, biological and psychological factors as well as the social environment have to be taken into account. In this chapter, we describe biological, emotional, cognitive, and social factors that play a role in the origin, perpetuation, and amplification of pain disorders.