1. An automated system, having a computing device configured to allow a patient to self-encode a subjective description of a pain experienced by the patient, via direct interactive dialogue between the patient and the computing device, the system comprising: a software function executing on the computing device configured to allow a patient to self-encode a subjective description of said pain to represent a degree or description of pain; and a set of aspect words stored in a data storage operatively coupled to the computing device, wherein the set of aspect words comprises encoded numeric values representing a plurality of different aspects of subjective patient descriptions of pain; a pain code array generated by the software function comprising the numeric values representative of the patient's self-encoded aspect words.