Chronic pain is a prevalent condition commonly associated with significant distress, disability, and distortion. However, not all individuals with chronic pain experience these negative effects, suggesting that pain-related suffering plays a crucial role in their emergence. This paper analyzes ‘pain-related suffering,’ distinguishing it from chronic pain and clarifying their relationship. It begins by identifying four key attributes of pain-related suffering that serve as desiderata for further analysis. Subsequently, the paper addresses the challenge of conceptualizing pain-related suffering in a way that aligns with these attributes and clarifies the conditions under which pain leads to suffering. It explores the dissociation between pain and suffering, arguing that suffering does not arise directly from pain’s intensity, persistence, unpleasantness, or functional impact but from the meaning ascribed to pain by the individual. Further, it critically examines existing theories of the ‘meaning’ that pain might hold, including the traditional view that suffering results from a perceived threat to personal integrity (Cassell, 1982) – a notion criticized for its conceptual ambiguity and misalignment with key attributes. Instead, the paper proposes that pain-related suffering arises when pain is perceived as a harmful disruption to one’s sense of self, related to embodied, interpersonal, and existential dimensions.