Abstract
Suffering is a powerful subjective experience. It is also a witnessed event. Simplistically, the challenge and mystery of suffering has two perspectives—the person who suffers and the person who witnesses that suffering in others. The themes of this chapter are dual. Firstly, that suffering searches for a voice. Secondly, that one of our defining challenges as humans is our response to the suffering of others. The chapter begins by describing the nature of suffering in the context of serious illness, how health professionals respond to that suffering and move on to consider suffering in a collective sense.
A kind of serenity is one of the rewards that come from having learned to just stand and stare. You don’t have to discover God or Nature. What you are doing is looking at things for their own sake
Donald Horne, Dying: A Memoir
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Akhmatova, Anna. 1992. The complete poems of Anna Akhmatova, ed. Roberta Reeder. Trans. J. Hemschemeyer. Edinburgh: Canongate Press.
Akhmatova, Anna. 1993. Requiem. In Twentieth-century Russian poetry, eds. A.C. Todd and M. Hayward. London: Fourth Estate.
Brennan, F.P. 2006. The woman from County Meath. Annals of Internal Medicine 114 (11): 864.
Brennan, F.P. 2007. The bells of Kwazakele. The Griffith Review- Spring 2007. Sydney: ABC Books.
Brennan, F.P. 2009. Standing on the platform—stories and reflection from palliative care. Kogarah: Vision Media.
Cassell, E.J. 1982. The nature of suffering and the goals of medicine. New England Journal of Medicine 306:639–645.
Cassidy, S. 1991. Good Friday people. London: Longman and Todd.
Dawe, B. 2007. White-water rafting and palliative care. In The best Australian poems of 2007, ed. Peter Rose. Melbourne: Black Inc.
Dillard, A. 1994. Holy the firm. New York: Collins.
Figes, Orlando. 2002. Purging of the poets. BBC History Magazine, Nov 30–34.
MacNeice, Louis. 2007. Thalassa. In The collected works of Louis MacNeice, ed. P. MacDonald. London: Faber and Faber.
Mahon, D. 1999. Collected poems. Oldcastle: Gallery Press.
Murray, M. 2007. The art of good listening. Irish Times.
Thompson, Francis. 1929. The hound of heaven. Selected poems of Francis Thompson. London: Cape.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brennan, F. (2012). Suffering Seeks a Voice. In: Malpas, J., Lickiss, N. (eds) Perspectives on Human Suffering. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2795-3_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2795-3_20
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-2794-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-2795-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)