In general, one turns away from pain all the more dramatically as it intensifies, without second thought. It is true that in many dire situations, pain responses make for fit adaptations. Turning the hand away from the fire is a good bet; keep the hand and in some cases keep the body too.
But this response does like to migrate to wherever it is evoked. One may turn away prematurely from something which is perceived to cause pain, which really only indirectly figures into cause. In a society governed by reason - which, to avoid freighted terms, we can insist is merely the persistent construction of symbols and logic to govern affairs - traumatic events may very well contribute to the construction of abstractions that long outlast their genesis.
Pain then may arise in places remote from its cause. It may arise in symbol, which creates a dark spot in that whole constellation of meaning as one turns away from it. To see clearly is to see through pain.
