Lecture 4: Suffering and Healing Flashcards
Can healing only occur within religious organisations and via religious experts?
No, healing occurs in secular institutions too and through all manner of people, provided they make a meaningful connection with us as sufferers and help us to imagine or
experience a pathway out of our suffering
What are the personal dimensions of suffering?
Younger (1995)
Younger (1995): the primary experience of suffering is alienation in 3 phases
- You become alienated from yourself even hatred (eg Oliver Sacks A leg to stand on)
- Alienated from others (rips aside the social self, need to speak, unsure of reception)
- Makes strangers out of those you know well (an insight into a foreign territory)
What is Cassell (2004) definition of suffering?
From Cassell (2004) suffering is a state of distress brought about by an actual or perceived threat to the integrity or continued existence of the whole person ie body/self which includes cultural and social dimensions (eg Ca Cx/fertility)
Why are pain and suffering not the same?
- Why do ballerinas enjoy standing on their toes (when the practice clearly damages their feet)?
- Because when pain has a purpose (to dance with grace and beauty) then it is not suffering and thus requires no healing - it is not something we avoid
- It is only when pain serves no useful purpose and appears to be unending then we suffer, become demoralized, and seek relief.
What are the three phases of regaining of voice (healing of suffering) from Younger (1995)?
- mute suffering
- Expressive suffering (the narrative)
- Finding an authentic voice
Narratives help with healing – the ‘chaos narrative’ is often associated with suffering, quest and witness narratives help us move forward, restitution helps with curing
What is Jaye (1998) definition of healing?
Healing relates to notions of transformation, restoration,
resolution, being made whole
Is curing the same as healing?
Curing and healing may intertwine; but healing goes
beyond; curing ≠ healing
What is Helman (2000) definition of how healing works?
Helman (2000): through language, ritual and the
manipulation of powerful cultural symbols
What is Moerman (2002) definition of how healing works?
- Moerman (2002) on psychotherapy – psychotherapy
works by helping us to create stories or myths, these
stories make our demoralisation less painful, healing
emerges from the depth of the meanings we create
for our suffering through these culturally specific
stories we learn to tell
What is Kleinman (1980:372) definition of how healing works?
- Kleinman (1980:372) healing has 3 stages – labeling
the sickness with a culturally appropriate category,
the label is ritually manipulated to culturally
transform it, this creates a new potent cultural
symbol of ‘well’ that is applied independently of
behavioral or social change
What was the Liggin’s reading definition of healing?
- Her participants described healing as: making sound
or whole, journeying both forwards and backwards,
hard work and transformation, connection, finding meaning, transcending suffering, blooming and contentment, exploration, gaining wisdom - She queries why psychiatry works with ‘recovery’ as
its goal not ‘healing’. Using healing could assist in
de-stigmatizing psychiatric care, ensuring patients
rights are met, removing the burden that there is
something wrong with you when you seek treatment
that you must overcome…
How can we build a bridge from suffering to healing?
- Narratives, healing rituals and symbols help
build a bridge from our current suffering into a
future place of healing by giving us a reason for
our suffering which is culturally congruent with
our own beliefs and values.
