Rethinking Suffering

Dr Andrew O’Shea, DCU/SPC recently published a book chapter in collaboration with Professor Frank Richardson, University of Texas, Austin, on the topic of suffering and psychology in In the Wake of Trauma: Psychology and Philosophy for the Suffering Other edited by Eric Severson, Brian Becker and David M. Goodman, and published by Duquesne University Press.

The publication, resulting from collaboration over three years, and a conference in Boston College, includes contributions from international voices across the fields of the humanities and social sciences, including Richard Kearney, Simon Critchley, and Tina Chanter among other well established luminaries.

The essays chapters range over a diverse landscape for inspiration—discussing thinkers such as Augustine, Rancière, Foucault, Freud, Heidegger, Kristeva, Taylor and Lacan; literary works from Homer to Shakespeare to Joyce; case studies from clinical practice, film, even the book of Job—all in order to identify new avenues for working through trauma’s far-reaching effects, both for individuals and in its social and collective dimensions..

Though these authors certainly do not speak with a singular voice, the volume is held together by an underlying “ethical turn,” a commitment to acknowledge the subjectivity of the victim. Richardson and O’Shea’s chapter “Suffering and Psychology: Dilemmas and Possibilities” explores, from a philosophical perspective, the many challenges confronting psychology today in light of the reality of human suffering.

A copy of In the Wake of Trauma: Psychology and Philosophy for the Suffering Other is available from Duquesne University Press here.