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The Importance of Suffering: The Value and Meaning of Emotional Discontent

Author(s) : James Davies

Reviews and Endorsements

'This book offers a deeply informed and nuanced understanding of the value of suffering, when productively engaged. Elegantly written in crisp prose, it offers an incisive critique of the medicalization of suffering when narrowly conceived as disorder to be treated by anti-depressant medications and prescriptions for "positive thinking." This book is rich in valuable insights for psychoanalysts, philosophers, psychologists, and the broadly educated European and North American public.'
- Janis H. Jenkins, Professor of Anthropology, University of California

'The Importance of Suffering is a brave and creative work that will change how we think about human suffering. Critiquing the ideology of anesthetization that characterizes modern-day life, Davies demonstrates -w ith great sensitivity and depth - how suffering can be leveraged for positive growth and change when not exiled from human experience. This is a bold and hopeful book; a major contribution.'
- Dr Rebecca Lester, Department of Anthropology, Washington University

'James Davies offers a highly original and insightful approach that restores the vital place of suffering in human development. Drawing from anthropology, philosophy and psychology Davies weaves a rich narrative that deserves to be widely read.'
- Dr Alistair Ross, Director of Psychodynamic Studies, Dean of Kellogg College, Oxford University

'This book, fluently and engagingly written, takes us back a number of decades to the exciting times of Szasz, Laing and others, and the revolutionary assertion that the origin of suffering is due to an unduly oppressive social environment. Such a prodding enlivens one's critical stance to what we as therapists do, and places the book next to classics like Philip Rieff's The Triumph of the Therapeutic, and Ian Craib's The Importance of Disappointment.'
- R. D. Hinshelwood, Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex