Medical anthropology quarterly
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This article examines an explanation circulating within a U. S. multidisciplinary pediatric pain clinic that links the neurobiology of functional pain disorders to desirable personal attributes such as smartness and creativity. ⋯ Within this narrative logic, diagnostic explanations reveal not only causal pathways but also predictive claims about recovery. By considering what is at stake when personal attributes are marshaled within a neurobiological diagnostic register that also lays out the patient's role in healing, this article complicates psychosomatic accounts of pain.