Abstract
Pain represents a signal that an organism is in danger. It attracts attention, it disturbs ongoing mental processes and it brings about fear.
In addition, cognitive appraisal of the pain brings about fear as well. The resulting fear triggers coping.
If the coping fails, it is followed by anxiety, anger, depression and negative evaluation of one's ability to cope with the pain and to live well. Assumption of the processes forms the basis of the Dynamic Model of Psychological Processes in Chronic Pain (DM).
The original DM, similarly to other recent models of chronic pain, may be considered a locally independent model (i.e., explained "by itself"). The present paper contains an analysis of "triggering" processes of the DM, the feeling and cognitive processing of the pain, as well as the fear caused by both processes.
In addition, the DM assumption is expanded by an "external" variable - Trait Anxiety - representing another condition of the fear.