book review
TRANSCRIPT
BOOK REVIEW
The importance of suffering: The value and meaning of emotional discontentJames DaviesHove, East Sussex, UK; New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2012208 pp., £20.69 (pbk), £72.00 (hbk)ISBN 978-0-415-66779-1(hbk), 978-0-415-66780-7 (pbk), 978-0-203-13778-9 (ebk)
James Davies’ The importance of suffering contemplates the social meaning of suffering and themanner in which the experience, as an integral aspect of human life, may stimulate personaland collective social change. Although, strictly speaking, belonging to the particular subjectfield of psychotherapy, Davies’s work is nonetheless fashioned as a kind of nuanced andthoughtful positive psychology that offers insight to a somewhat wider readership.
The book contains seven main chapters, as well as introductory and concluding com-ments, appendixes and a glossary. The Introduction requests that the book be read as a‘book of ideas’ identifying ‘to offer new ways of thinking about suffering which will enableus to relate to it less fearfully and more productively’ (p. 4) and laments an expanding intol-erance and fear of suffering in contemporary society. This is, not least, as manifested withinthe contemporary ‘disorder model’ of biological psychiatry. The central aim of the book iscommunicated here as advancing a ‘relational perspective on suffering’ that requires reflec-tion upon the relationship between internal and emotional states of disaffection and externalsocial conditions.
Chapter 1 articulates an anthropologically informed understanding of human life as asophisticated symbiosis between biological nature and social and cultural conditions. Ac-cordingly, it is posited that individual suffering is best fathomed as the outcome of relation-ships with others, as well as particular places and material objects. Moreover, that reflectionupon these dynamics is imperative to finding any value in the experience. Chapter 2 con-siders particular examples of this understanding. These include the narrative of a trainee psy-chotherapist who was unable to overcome theoretical doubts at a psychoanalytic trainingschool and was eventually dismissed for her sustained questioning of the orthodoxy sub-scribed to by her frustrated tutors, only to find success in another training institution. Inaddition to more general accounts of the number of influential historical figures, such asCarl Jung and Winston Churchill, who were treated with suspicion or ridiculed by teachersduring their time in formal schooling on the basis of their idiosyncrasies and divergence fromaccepted expectations, and yet achieved much in later life, arguably to the greater well-beingof others.
Chapter 3 contends that, in the Western world, the twentieth century has been a period inwhich a recognisable shift has occurred towards a ‘negative view of suffering’, namely a phil-osophy considering the affective experience of suffering to have ‘nothing of value to add tohuman life’ (p. 175). This philosophy, it is argued, was an eventual and unanticipated con-sequence of post-enlightenment social reform and increased secularisation, and is now mostevident in forms of so-called ‘scientistic’ biomedical and behavioural explanations ofemotional affliction. A ‘negative view of suffering’ suppresses the illuminative and
Journal of Mental Health, 2012; 21(5): 517–519© 2012 Informa UK, Ltd.ISSN: 0963-8237 print / ISSN 1360-0567 onlineDOI: 10.3109/09638237.2012.714514
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transformative potential of any alternative understanding of the experience. The philosophyis contrasted with a ‘positive view of suffering’, historically apparent in forms of psychoana-lytic thought, Christian theology, and the Romantic Movement, which ‘held that sufferingwas integral to human preferment’ and a matter of moral contemplation (p.58), as well asa potential catalyst for the process of individual and social transformation. Chapter 4 exam-ines the consequences of the proliferation of the negative vision of suffering and anticipates itas having an oppressive impact on individual lives through an emergent faith in the belief thatemotional pain can be relieved in immediate terms. This negative view is further, connectedto a ‘culture of anaesthetic regimes’, including modern medicine and a number of examplesof purported ‘quick fixes’ to individual suffering manifest in vast consumerist and happinessindustries, such as cognitive-behavioural therapies and anti-depressant medication. It ispostulated that whilst the illusory qualities of these regimes may ‘offer temporary respite tothe stresses and strains of contemporary life’, they ‘rarely unearth and resolve’ the ‘deeperpsychological and social problems’ that emotional disaffection resembles’ (p. 89).
Chapter 5 argues that when reflection upon the meaning of suffering is impeded in thismanner, it may be cyclically transmitted to others and perhaps become even more corrosiveand unproductive. In Chapter 6, a type of more ‘productive suffering’ is conceived of as apersonal ritual process towards a fuller and more mature stage of personal and social devel-opment. Various classic anthropological studies are drawn upon to support this view. Thisstandpoint is further related, in Chapter 7, to the examination of the life stories of some‘great sufferers’: Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill and Leo Tolstoy, and describes howfrustrations, disappointment and adversity in the lives of these individuals eventually led to‘unexpected benefit’ and contributed to the resonant scholarly legacies of each.
The concluding chapter reminds the reader of the need for a ‘relational perspective on suf-fering’ and recapitulates the preceding work, maintaining that ‘the call to health resides inunusual places – in the sadness, the anxiety, the depression or the grief’ (p. 167), pulling to-gether the book’s core arguments surrounding the propensity of a negative vision of sufferingto inadvertently increase (‘unproductive’) suffering in its anaesthetisation and the obstaclesthis may place in the way of communal and progressive reform. This is followed by thetwo supplementary appendixes: the first, a history of the concept of the tendency forhuman realisation and, the second, an overview of some clues that may assist in distinguish-ing between instances of productive and unproductive suffering. The glossary succinctlydefines the key terms employed throughout the book.
The importance of suffering has a number of strengths as well as a clear propitiousness as ‘abook of ideas’. Some interesting observations are made regarding the state of contemporarypsychiatric and psychotherapeutic practice and the reductionist tendencies intrinsic tobio-medical theorising. In particular, the constraining consequences these tendencies mayhave for human creativity, apposite in an era of rising Ritalin prescriptions for childrenwith ADHD (Doward & Craig, 2012). Theoretical reflections are also consistently relatedto practical application, and Davies writing balances clarity and eloquence throughout.
Despite these apparent strengths, however, the book could have been improved on thebasis of a few shortcomings. First, whilst there is discussion of poverty and social disadvan-tage in quite general terms, the examples of suffering provided in the book appear to be morepartial to experiences within quite privileged lives. For instance, the founding editor of thefashion magazine Elle, Sally Brampton’s (pp. 157–161) journey through depression isdwelled upon. This inclination potentially impresses the reader to question how robustsome of the arguments advanced are. Whether meaning or value can be found in the suffer-ing of all lives, particularly the ‘social suffering’ experienced by those residing in situation ofnotable social and economic impoverishment, within which the experience perhaps feels
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meaningless precisely because circumstantial constraints are so overwhelming and debilitat-ing (see Frost & Hoggett, 2008). Second, the book does not appear to fully foster the impetusprovided by other relevant social-scientific concern with the experience of suffering (cf.Frank, 2001; Wilkinson, 2001), and limited attempts are made to situate and enrich theargument of the book by contrasting it to recent scholarship of common concern. Forexample, the labours of the sociologist Iain Wilkinson and his work concerning the ‘sociologyof suffering’ go unmentioned. This is despite apparent parallels between the book’s corethesis and Wilkinson’s arguments (informed by the political theorist Hannah Arendt)regarding the need to ‘think with suffering’ and his concern for social-scientific endeavourmore generally, to regain a sense of ethical relevance and ‘make some important contri-butions to … intellectual and political reformation’ (Wilkinson, 2005, p. 159).
In summary then, notwithstanding some reservations, The importance of suffering is a well-crafted and timely anti-psychiatric treatise. The book will be a suitable and worthwhile readfor professionals in the field of mental health, especially those concerned with the socialfunction and political purpose of their professional task.
References
Doward, J., & Craig, E. (2012). Ritalin use for ADHD children rises fourfold. The Observer, Sunday 6th May.Frank, A.W. (2008). Can we research suffering? Qualitative Health Research, 11(3), 353–362.Frost, L., & Hoggett, P. (2008). Human agency and social suffering. Critical Social Policy, 28(4), 438–460.Wilkinson, I. (2001). Thinking with suffering. Cultural Values, 5(4), 421–444.Wilkinson, I. (2005). Suffering: A sociological introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.
PHILIP JOHN ARCHARD
Centre for Social WorkUniversity of Nottingham
Nottingham, UKE-mail: [email protected]
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