Suffering and the Nature of Healing

Suffering and the Nature of Healing

by Daniel B. Hinshaw, M.D. — 262 pp. paper $25.00

“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.” This quotation from Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning expresses the perspective Hinshaw adopts in this study of the true meaning of “care for the sick.” After exploring the ancient Christian tradition with regard to healthcare and then surveying how “care for the sick” has largely given way to a concern for “curing the disease,” he embarks on a study of what it truly means to care for those who are suffering during illness. Part one asks “what is suffering, and what is its significance?” Defining suffering as a “threat to the unity of the person,” Hinshaw illuminates (through theological reflection and qualitative research) what patients and their loved ones experience as they undergo suffering on multiple levels. The second part focuses specifically on the encounter of a patient with those trying to help, asking what constitutes a therapeutic relationship and how the patient’s pain should be viewed in that context. Hinshaw then proposes that some measure of healing can be achieved even when the patient’s suffering will end in death. Gathering wisdom from secular psychology and recent trends in the spirituality of palliative care, he offers a distinctly Christian perspective on suffering and death, including the roles played by reconciliation, gratitude, and communion in the “transformation of suffering into victory,” even at the end of life.   

The Father of Existentialism

'Tis the birthday of the "father of existentialism," Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, who said: "It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey."

Called by some "an outsider in the history of philosophy," Kierkegaard baffles categorization. His work includes aesthetic novels, psychology, Christian dogmatics, satire, philosophical "scraps" and "postscripts," literary reviews, edifying discourses, Christian polemics, and self-interpretations—though he considered himself, first and foremost, a religious poet.

Kierkegaard inherited melancholy (at least in part) from his father, who figures prominently throughout his work (in stories of sacrifice, as the archetypal patriarch, and in several dedications), while his mother is never mentioned. Many critics conjoin this fact with a remark Kierkegaard makes in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, that "an omnipresent person should be recognizable precisely by being invisible," speculating that his mother is, in reality, ever-present.

Rhetorically, Kierkegaard used irony, satire, parody, humor, and what he calls "indirect communication" as a way to help the reader engage with existential ideas. Regarding his idea of indirect communication, he writes (in Concluding Unscientific Postscript):

No anonymous author can more slyly hide himself, and no maieutic can more carefully recede from a direct relation than God can. He is in the creation, everywhere in the creation, but he is not there directly, and only when the single individual turns inward into himself (consequently only in the inwardness of self-actvity) does he become aware and capable of seeing God.

Though it took some time and effort, he eventually became a master of his mother tongue (Danish) and was rivaled only by his contemporary, Hans Christian Andersen.

O—did we mention the man was rather religious about walking?

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

On to the books…

Either/Or, Part 1 (Kierkegaard's Writings)

For Self-Examination / Judge for Yourselves! (Kierkegaard's Writings)

Gospel of Sufferings

A Literary Review

The Point of View (Kierkegaard's Writings)

Practice in Christianity (Kierkegaard's Writings)

Prefaces / Writing Sampler

Purity of Heart