An understanding of pain presupposes that the sufferer is able to use a language which is understood by all. Pain is always described in the language of experience and this experience, encountered by all, is nevertheless lived alone. The interpretive process provides the framework for this study which explores the experiences of five persistent pain sufferers. They have not had their pain validated by diagnosis and persistent pain has become the centrepiece of their existence. The use of epiphany moments illuminates an understanding of the essence of persistent pain experiences, and sufferers are provided with a voice to tell their own stories as their experiences unfold through events in time. These stories are then deconstructed and analysed in order to bring meaning to the lives described. This study found that the communal folklore of pain remains underpinned by dominant ideological forces and discursive practices which sustain the powerlessness of persistent pain sufferers. The sufferer is rendered powerless through medical technologies including the medical interview. Through language the perception of pain is understood and translated in such a way as to cause the sufferer to question the validity of their experience while accepting blame for the persistence of their pain and the need to have it stop. It was postulated that resistance to this process provides the mechanism through which persistent pain sufferers are able to surrender previously held notions of self to alternate identities, which encapsulate the embodied experience of pain. The sufferer can then move to a position where their persistent pain experience is validated. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)