How shall human suffering be conceptualized? In this succinct, deeply beautiful book, David Bakan has drawn upon recent biological and psychiatric research, as well as biblical sources, in an effort to understand the very condition of human mortality. Bakan has neither aspired to the abstraction of theological statements nor descended to a purely reductionist position. He states, "I do not know what divinity is there outside the compass of man's humanity". He is convinced, however, that human suffering is a paradox: for consciousness is a precondition for suffering as well as its management; and bodily disorder, despite the traditional claims for immortality, is biologically inherent in human growth.
"Women and Sacrifice is an original and lucid book that explores the anthropology and developmental psychology of male violence in blood sacrifice and its implications in religion and culture. It is the first comprehensive study of the psychology of gender and religion using the controversial ideas of Heinz Kohut and self-psychology." "Beers not only makes an important contribution to our psychological understanding of sacrifice, he explores how narcissistic anxiety fuels rituals and social structures that subordinate women. He bases his provocative theory on three general premises: sacrifice is traditionally performed only by men; the gender specificity of sacrifice can be traced to gender-specific developments of men and women and is reflected in religions throughout the world; and the male violence of sacrifice is related to other forms of male violence. Beers reviews the theories of symbol-formation of Freud, Jung, Klein, and Winnicott and argues that Kohut's self-psychology is more appropriate for understanding the psychology of symbolic ritual. The psychological claims in the book are presented in the context of social structures, cultural expressions, and individual and group history. Beers includes critiques of such leading theorists of ritual and sacrifice as Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, Douglas, Turner, Geertz, Freud, Jung, and Girard." "In analyzing sacrifice among the Malekulans of Melanesia and the eucharist of the American Episcopal Church, Beers develops the theory that such rituals have a psychological function that diminishes and controls women. He claims that men so fear women that religious ritual excludes women in order that men can gain and retain power over them."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This is a book about the meanings we make out of pain. The greatest surprise I encountered in discussing this topic over the past ten years was the consistency with which I was asked a single unvarying question: Are you writing about physical pain or mental pain? The overwhelming consistency of this response convinces me that modern culture rests upon and underlying belief so strong that it grips us with the force of a founding myth. Call it the Myth of Two Pains. We live in an era when many people believe--as a basic, unexamined foundation of thought--that pain comes divided into separate types: physical and mental. These two types of pain, so the myth goes, are as different as land and sea. You feel physical pain if your arm breaks, and you feel mental pain if your heart breaks. Between these two different events we seem to imagine a gulf so wide and deep that it might as well be filled by a sea that is impossible to navigate.
In this original study, Jamie Mayerfeld undertakes a careful inquiry into the meaning and moral significance of suffering. Understanding suffering in hedonistic terms as an affliction of feeling, he addresses difficulties associated with its identification and measurement. He then turns to an examination of the duty to relieve suffering: its content, its weight relative to other moral considerations, and the role it should play in our lives. Among the claims defended in the book are that suffering needs to be distinguished from both physical pain and the frustration of desire, that interpersonal comparisons of the intensity of happiness and suffering are possible, that several psychological processes hinder our awareness of other people's suffering, and that the prevention of suffering should often be pursued indirectly. Mayerfeld concludes his discussion by arguing that the reduction of suffering is morally more important than the promotion of happiness, and that most of us greatly underestimate the force of the duty to prevent suffering. As the first systematic book-length inquiry into the moral significance of suffering, Suffering and Moral Responsibility makes an important contribution to moral philosophy and political theory, and will interest specialists in each of these areas.
Health, illness and disease are topics well-suited to interdisciplinary inquiry. This book brings together scholars from around the world who share an interest in and a commitment to bridging the traditional boundaries of inquiry. We hope that this book begins new conversations that will situate health in broader socio-cultural contexts and establish connections between health, illness and disease and other socio-political issues. This book is the outcome of the first global conference on “Making Sense of: Health, Illness and Disease,” held at St Catherine's College, Oxford, in June 2002. The selected papers pursue a range of topics from the cultural significance of narratives of health, illness and disease to healing practices in contemporary society as well as patients’ illness experiences. Researchers and health care practitioners now live in the age of interdisciplinarity, which has transformed both health care delivery and research on health. The essays in this collection transcend the traditional boundaries of biomedicine and draw attention to the many ways in which health is embedded in socio-cultural norms and how these norms, in turn, shape health practices and health care. This volume is of interest not only to researchers but also to those delivering health care.
This comprehensive text examines the physical and mental repercussions of pain among the elderly, finding theoretical bases in such fields as dynamic psychology, psychophysics, behavior modification, pharmacology, and nutrition. The book covers the basic topics of biobehaviorism, psychosocial and psychodynamic aspects, and clinical techniques as they pertain to treatment of elderly patients. The authors of the book's 17 chapters are all esteemed specialists on particular aspects of pain and aging, and all provide state-of-the-science solutions to quality-of-life problems associated with the elderly.
"In Living Through Pain, Kristin Swenson charts the multifaceted personal and social problems caused by chronic pain. This book also surveys professional efforts to mitigate and manage pain. Because the experience of pain involves all aspects of a person - body, mind, spirit, and community - Swenson consults an ancient resource for wisdom, perspective, and insight. Her close reading of selected psalms from the Hebrew Bible demonstrates that the challenge of living through pain is timeless. Living Through Pain chronicles how these ancient texts offer a vocabulary and grammar for understanding and expressing the contemporary experience of pain. Pain is a universal experience, and this book invites readers to consider more fully what is involved in the process of healing."--BOOK JACKET.
Sickness, an accident, financial pressure, a suffering child, the unknown, harmful habits, cancer, failureCan you truly enjoy blessing in the midst of suffering and find the strength to overcome numerous obstacles in order to serve God and others? Lydia shares how God did indeed bless her and her family through pain and enabled them to triumph over various challenges, reaping the benefits of sacrifice. May your heart be encouraged through the testimony of their experiences to face whatever pain and challenges are placed in your path.
This book presents selections from Freud's writings on religion and from the work of five more recent contributors to the psychoanalytic study of religion: David Bakan, Erik H. Erikson, Heinz Kohut, Julia Kristeva, and D.W. Winnicott. It is the first collection of texts in the psychology of religion that is oriented more toward religious studies than toward the study of psychology. In his introduction, Donald Capps points out that psychoanalysis resembles religions in the way in which its founding documents (Freud's own writings) have been closely read, have evoked interpretive battles, and have been reassessed and reapplied in response to changing social and cultural circumstances. He notes that just as Freud's writings on religion focus on the biblical text, the majority of the authors included here do likewise, showing how the Bible may be read psychoanalytically. Both Freud and his successors, says Capps, also reflect the high value that the Christian culture of the West has placed on painting and sculpture, revealing the importance of perception and imagination to the psychoanalytic study of religion. Capps highlights the ways in which all the Freudians work intertextually with Freud's writings, with the writings of other authors included in the book, and with other writings of their own.
