The Nature of Human Suffering An Integration of Psychotherapeutic and Spiritual Perspectives Andrew Clark What do we mean by the word suffering? Sub-ferre - to carry under, undergo Compare with offer (carry to), transfer (carry across), refer (carry back), prefer (carry before), defer (carry down), differ (carry from) confer (carry together), infer (carry into) All relational. Something being carried somewhere. What is being carried and to whom or to where? Passio to suffer (strong emotion) Under what? Undercarriage that which bears the weight of a vehicle above the wheels apt image of the meaning of human suffering Helen Luke Greek myth Persephone daughter of Zeus and Demeter (Goddess of Nature). Abducted by Hades (God of the Underworld). Demeter s grief made Earth barren. Zeus tries to intervene but Persephone eats the seeds of a pomegranate given to her by Hades that binds her to him to 4 months of the year. Decided she would spend 4 months of the year in the underworld (=winter) and 8 months with her mother (return=spring). Underground/Overground journey through life like the seasons of Nature Systole-diastole Success-failure Growth-decay Exercise
Look back on something that was hard for you in your life perhaps which you viewed as a failure or as a time that you suffered. What was long term impact? Perspectives from Freud, Jung and Foulkes Freud: human beings motivated by pleasure principle and avoidance of displeasure. Three sources of displeasure or suffering 1. Mortal body 2. Natural world 3. Living with other human beings in a society most painful conflict between individual s instinct for seeking gratification and the reality of societal life. Guilt and the neurotic repression of instinct are simply the price we pay in order to live harmoniously in families and communities. Task of therapy to transform neurotic misery to ordinary human unhappiness. Jung: Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering. Neurosis is a stop sign marking a wrong turning, a summons to be cured First half of life involves ego development with progressive separation between ego and Self; whereas the second half of life requires a surrender of the ego to more consciously inhabit the larger Self. Jung: I have learned that all the greatest and most important problems in life are fundamentally insoluble They can never be solved, but only outgrown Jung: The principal aim of psychotherapy is not to transport the patient to an impossible state of happiness, but to help him acquire steadfastness and philosophic patience in face of suffering. Life demands for its completion and fulfillment a balance between joy and sorrow." Helen Luke: The root of all our neuroses lie in the conflict between our longing for growth and freedom and our incapacity or refusal to pay the price in suffering of the kind which challenges the supremacy of the ego s demands. The ego will endure the worst kind of agonies of neurotic misery rather than one moment of consent to the death of even a small part of its demand or its
sense of importance... [Acceptance of suffering] allows us to build the undercarriage of suffering upon which the superstructure of our lives may securely rest and under which the wheels may move freely over the earth. Helen Luke: Every time a person exchanges neurotic depression for real suffering, he or she is sharing to some small degree in the carrying of the suffering of humanity, in bearing a tiny part of the darkness of the world. Foulkes: The neurotic position in its very nature is highly individualistic. It is group disruptive in essence for it is genetically the result of an incompatibility between the individual and his original group. The neurotic symptom mumbles to itself autistically hoping to be heard. Therapeutic endeavour is to substitute communication for neurotic symptom Perspectives from major faith traditions: Christianity Genesis: Adam and Eve Different interpretations of this story include: Brought sin into the world. Disobedience Hubris Test Birth of self-consciousness (Fruit=consciousness). The myth symbolises the birth for the ego or fall into consciousness. The effect of this birth is to alienate the ego from its origins it now moves into the world of suffering conflict and uncertainty. Stories of Hebrew Bible about repeatedly losing and re-finding connection with God. Job: A plot between God and Satan to see if Job can be made to curse God: Job encounters one trauma after another loss of family, wealth, health
So-called friends those who plough iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. Eventually, after much suffering Job acknowledges his smallness in the face of God s power. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Christ suffering as redeeming act Carry my cross Drink my cup Unfortunately, has led to centuries of either seeking out suffering through or inflicting suffering in those who had different creeds. Cult of suffering to deliberately seek out pain and suffering eg mortification of the body still influential today. Mystic Christian tradition Baptism awakening Testing - temptation Illumination transfiguration Dying to self crucifixion Rising again resurrection Union ascension Birthing - Pentecost Archbishop Tutu: Nothing beautiful in the end comes without some measure of pain... Suffering can either embitter or ennoble depending on whether they find meaning in their suffering... For us to grow in generosity of spirit we have to undergo in some way or other a diminishing Know thyself tis halfway to God, lose thyself and all the way is trod (St Augustine)
Buddhism Four noble truths 1. Life involves suffering (dukkha) 2. Suffering arises because we cling to the impermanence of life. This keeps us caught in repeated cycle of rebirth, more suffering and dying again 3. Suffering ends if we stop clinging to impermanence 4. The path to end this clinging is the Noble eightfold path of: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right "samadhi" (meditative union). Buddhist story: A young mother who had lost her first born child seeks out the Buddha. He says I can heal your affliction. Go out into the city and bring back a mustard seed from any household in which there has never been a death... Poet s perspective Whenever I reach a psychological insight, I realise that a poet has been there before Freud The Man Watching Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Robert Bly) I can tell by the way the trees beat, after so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes that a storm is coming, and I hear the far-off fields say things I can t bear without a friend, I can t love without a sister
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on across the woods and across time, and the world looks as if it had no age: the landscape like a line in the psalm book, is seriousness and weight and eternity. What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights us is so great! If only we would let ourselves be dominated as things do by some immense storm, we would become strong too, and not need names. When we win it s with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us. I mean the Angel who appeared to the wrestlers of the Old Testament: when the wrestler s sinews grew long like metal strings, he felt them under his fingers like chords of deep music. Whoever was beaten by this Angel (who often simply declined the fight) went away proud and strengthened and great from that harsh hand, that kneaded him as if to change his shape. Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings. Personal perspective We learn so much more from what we think of as failures than we do from what we think of as successes to the point where those terms of success and failure get turned upside down. Periods of suffering followed by deeper sense of who I am Every period of suffering is the midwife to a deeper connection with myself, with others and with God Integration of psychotherapeutic and spiritual perspectives Know thyself, Lose thyself Become psychologically whole, withdraw projections Reconnect people with the universal experience of being human