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1
DeMarinis, Valerie. Pastoral care, existential health, and existential epidemiology: A Swedish postmodern case study. Stockholm: Verbum, 2003.
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2
DeMarinis, Valerie M. Pastoral care, existential health and existential epidemiology: A Swedish postmodern case study. Stockholm: Verbum Förlag, 2003.
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Mena, Wenceslao Vial. La antropología de Viktor Frankl: El dolor, una puerta abierta. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria, 1999.
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Sadala, Maria Lúcia Araújo. Cuidar de pacientes com Aids: O olhar fenomenológico. São Paulo, SP: Editora UNESP, 2000.
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Hauser, Jan. Vom Sinn des Leidens: Die Bedeutung systemtheoretischer, existenzphilosophischer und religiös-spiritueller Anschauungsweisen für die therapeutische Praxis. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2004.
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6
Subjectivity and Suffering in American Culture: Possible Selves (Culture, Mind and Society). Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
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7
Lacey, Judith. Management of the actively dying patient. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199656097.003.0181.
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The period leading to death is characterized by increasing prevalence and intensity of physical, psychological, existential, and social concerns, and it is often a challenging time for patients, their families, and health-care providers. This chapter specifically addresses the most prevalent symptoms and concerns encountered when managing the actively dying patient. Symptoms affecting dying patients’ comfort, including pain, dyspnoea, delirium, terminal secretions, and refractory symptoms and suffering require different clinical management as death approaches. Other topics included are recognizing the dying phase; communication with and preparation of patient, family, and staff; anticipating dying-advanced care planning and approach to resuscitation; addressing psychosocial and existential concerns; and approach to difficult end-of-life scenarios. This chapter aims to provide the health-care practitioner with a good overview and approach to the whole-person care needs of the dying patient and their family and carers to enable health practitioners to feel comfortable in providing this important care with confidence.
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Kwee, G. T. Maurits. Relational Buddhism: An Integrative Psychology of Happiness Amidst Existential Suffering. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199557257.013.0028.
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Kozlova, Ekaterina E. Conclusion. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198796879.003.0006.
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This section considers why ancient communities in crisis deemed sorrowing motherhood as a potent agent in bringing about their preservation. It suggests, for example, that since child loss creates existential limbo for the bereft mother, it can unlock a unique capacity in her for incessant supplications and intercessions. Thus, when groups and individuals were at their most vulnerable, the perpetual destabilization of a bereft mother and the ability to intercede as its outcome were the go-to social tools. Additionally, it considers the ability of mourning rites to transgress normal social expectations and defy class differences. Consequently, within a ritual context bereft mothers could voice uncensored perspectives on personal and collective suffering and on the persons responsible for it. Finally, since Israel used family-based metaphors for its various social structures, it was only natural to appeal to maternal agency, with its emphasis on care and protection, in times of crises.
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Cultural-Existential Psychology: The Role of Culture in Suffering and Threat. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
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Sullivan, Daniel. Cultural-Existential Psychology: The Role of Culture in Suffering and Threat. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
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12
Moen, Kjetil. Death at Work: Existential and Psychosocial Perspectives on End-of-Life Care. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
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Moen, Kjetil. Death at Work: Existential and Psychosocial Perspectives on End-of-Life Care. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
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1953-, Barnett Laura, ed. When death enters the therapeutic space: Existential perspectives in psychotherapy and counselling. Hove, East Sussex: Routledge, 2008.
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Harrison, Graham. Developmentalism. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198785798.001.0001.
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When we talk about development, we are talking about capitalist development. Taking a historical-comparativ e approach, Harrison understands development as a transformation which involves a deep and integrated political economy of change: a shift from a state of ‘capital-ascendance’ to ‘capital-dominance’. It is only through a transformation towards capital dominance that mass poverty reduction and the construction of a commonwealth are possible. However, capitalist development is extremely difficult and requires a highly exacting political endeavour. The politics of development is conceptualized as developmentalism: a strategy and ideology in which governments exercise heavy directive power, endure instability and crisis, and secure a rudimentary legitimacy for their efforts. The political exertions required to generate and sustain a developmentalist strategy are too great to be met by the simple desire to develop. Harrison argues that developmentalism requires a conflation of successful capitalist transformation with some form of existential insecurity of the state itself. Developmentalism flourishes when capitalist transformation connects to profound questions of sovereignty, statehood, nation-building, and elite survival. Authoritarian state action is intrinsic to developmentalism, which the book addresses by adapting a realist approach to politics in which political norms and values are generated within the agonies of suffering and benefit generated by an ascending capital. Taking case studies from the last 250 years, Developmentalism shows the deep contextualization of capitalist transformation as well as the massive improvements in material life that it has generated.
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Cassell, Eric J. The Nature of Suffering. Edited by Stuart J. Youngner and Robert M. Arnold. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199974412.013.17.
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This chapter examines the problem of suffering and assesses therapeutic interventions for sick or dying patients. It considers what makes suffering a unique form of distress before discussing the difficulty faced by clinicians, especially Western clinicians, when dealing with suffering due to their tendency to focus primarily on the physical problems of very sick patients while ignoring the person of the patient. It also looks at different kinds of suffering, such as existential suffering (which includes psychological and physical suffering) and argues that there are no different kinds of suffering—only suffering. The chapter claims that suffering is something that happens to persons rather than to bodies, that the integrity or intactness of the person is threatened by the stimulus to suffering, and that suffering always involves self-conflict, which is present in the dying and in those with acute illness. Finally, it presents examples to illustrate that suffering is personal.
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Bioethics Perspective of the Feasibility and Implementation of an Existential Psychoanalytic Praxis Addressing End-of-Life Care in the Elderly. Christian Faith Publishing, Inc, 2018.
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Strada, E. Alessandra. The Fifth Domain of Palliative Care. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199798551.003.0006.
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This chapter presents palliative psychology competencies in the fifth domain of palliative care, which addresses the existential and spiritual needs of the patient and the family. The constructs of spiritual screening, spiritual history, and spiritual assessment are discussed with attention to their application to the palliative care setting. Through clinical case vignettes and discussions, the chapter discusses how psychologists can effectively use spiritual screening and spiritual history to fully understand spiritual and existential needs. Ways of integrating spiritual concerns and needs during the therapy session are highlighted in this chapter. The interplay of psychological and spiritual concerns offers the opportunity for palliative psychologists and spiritual care providers to collaborate in the psychospiritual care of the patient and the family. Because interdisciplinary collaboration is a hallmark of palliative care, the chapter also describes examples of effective collaboration between psychologists and spiritual care providers, from assessment to treatment planning.
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Watson, Max, Stephen Ward, Nandini Vallath, Jo Wells, and Rachel Campbell, eds. Oxford Handbook of Palliative Care. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198745655.001.0001.
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The Oxford Handbook of Palliative Care is a concise summary of current Palliative Care Practice written by those actively involved in the care of patients in the last phase of life. While management of symptoms is a very important contribution to the quality of end of life care, dying is not predominantly a medical event, but an important part of life. As such the Handbook, while detailing the contemporary management of physical and psychological symptoms, also includes contributions from a wide variety of professionals involved in the wider aspects of care and support for individuals and their families. The Handbook also includes references and quotations from literature relating to the existential issues that surround mortality.
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Aulino, Felicity. Rituals of Care. Cornell University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501739729.001.0001.
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End-of-life issues are increasingly central to discussions within medical anthropology, the anthropology of political action, and the study of Buddhist philosophy and practice. This book speaks directly to these important anthropological and existential conversations. Against the backdrop of global population aging and increased attention to care for the elderly, both personal and professional, the book challenges common presumptions about the universal nature of “caring.” The book shows an inseparable link between forms of social organization and forms of care. Unlike most accounts of the quotidian concerns of providing care in a rapidly aging society, the book brings attention to corporeal processes. Moving from vivid descriptions of the embodied routines at the heart of home caregiving to depictions of care practices in more general ways—care for one's group, care of the polity—it develops the argument that religious, social, and political structures are embodied, through habituated action, in practices of providing for others. Under the watchful treatment of the author, care becomes a powerful foil for understanding recent political turmoil and structural change in Thailand, proving embodied practice to be a vital vantage point for phenomenological and political analyses alike.
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Nagasawa, Yujin. The Problem of Evil for Atheists. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198821625.003.0007.
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This chapter contends that the problem of evil arises not only for theists but also for atheists. To demonstrate this, focus is placed on ‘the problem of systemic evil’, where this is the problem of accounting for the violent, cruel, and unfair system of natural selection, a system which guarantees pain and suffering for uncountably many sentient beings. Unlike the traditional problem of evil, which concentrates on specific events, the more challenging problem of systemic evil emphasizes that the entire biological system is evil. Despite the systemic nature of evil, both theists and atheists typically uphold ‘existential optimism’, the thesis that the world is overall a good place and that we should be grateful for our existence in it. The combination of systemic evil and existential optimism gives rise to the ‘existential problem of systemic evil’, and this is a problem that theists have greater resources in answering than do atheists.
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Speck, Peter, and Christopher Herbert. Communication issues in pastoral care and chaplaincy. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198736134.003.0050.
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The remit of those involved in pastoral care and chaplaincy is not confined to patients of a particular faith or belief system. However, it differs from counselling, since the encounter takes place within the context of a belief system held by the pastoral carer, and which may or may not be shared by the recipient of care. The diagnosis of a life-threatening illness will trigger a range of emotional responses, which may include questions of an existential nature relating to causality, the meaning of the illness, and fears for the future. The essence of communication in pastoral care and chaplaincy is the creation of a safe space within which the person can explore issues of importance to them within the context of their own spirituality.
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McClement, Susan, and Genevieve Thompson. The meaning of dignity in psychosocial care. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198806677.003.0008.
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Individuals living with life-limiting illness experience a myriad of physical, psychosocial and existential challenges. Psychosocial care is an holistic approach that aims to mitigate the distress engendered by these challenges. One important facet of such care includes tending to patient dignity. This chapter discusses what dignity is, why it is important, and how dignity conserving care can be weaved into daily clinical encounters. Palliative care is a type of health care for individuals facing life-threatening illness and their families that involves ongoing evaluation and management of a person’s pain and other physical symptoms. It also involves the provision of psychosocial care—care that attends to a person’s emotional, social, and spiritual well-being. This whole-person approach to the care of individuals is concerned with addressing a range of needs that can improve quality of life.
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Kissane, David W., Annette F. Street, Erin E. Schweers, and Thomas M. Atkinson. Research into psychosocial issues. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199656097.003.0195.
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Psychological, existential, spiritual, and social issues cause much suffering and deserve extensive study to understand these concerns more fully and to intervene more effectively. Themes that abound include communication, coping, ethics, the family, caregiving, quality of life, death and dying, psychiatric disorders, suffering, and the many expressions of distress. Many study designs are possible to explore these themes, often with complementary quantitative and qualitative components. This chapter summarizes the psychometric properties of many of the instruments that are commonly employed in such studies and the computer-assisted software packages that assist qualitative analyses. The goal is to strengthen research design and optimize research outcomes to benefit the discipline.
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Sterckx, Sigrid, and Kasper Raus. Continuous Sedation at the End of Life. Edited by Stuart J. Youngner and Robert M. Arnold. Oxford University Press, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199974412.013.7.
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This chapter examines continuous sedation as a way to relieve unbearable suffering in patients at the end of life. After considering consensus and guidelines on continuous sedation, it looks at the debate over terminology and definition. It then discusses the practice of continuous sedation in various countries and how it is performed, along with the importance of patient consent and autonomy in all sedation guidelines. The chapter goes on to analyze some of the commonly invoked justifications for continuous sedation, including the doctrine of double effect, last resort and refractory suffering, autonomy and patient consent, and proportionality. It also reviews contentious issues raised by continuous sedation, such as whether it should be restricted to patients with a very short life expectancy, artificial nutrition and hydration, and existential or psychological suffering.
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Grassi, Luigi, Maria Giulia Nanni, and Rosangela Caruso. Psychotherapeutic interventions. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198806677.003.0010.
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Psychotherapy is an integrative and integrated part of modern patient/relation-centered care in the advanced and terminal phases of physical illness. Psychiatric disorders (e.g. depressive spectrum, stress-related, and anxiety disorders), other clinically significant psychosocial conditions (e.g. demoralization, existential pain) and interpersonal, psychological, and spiritual needs have to be addressed by psychological intervention. Supportive-Expressive Group Psychotherapy (SEGT), Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCT), Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully Therapy (CALM), cognitive-existential therapy, dignity therapy (DT) and other psychotherapeutic interventions have been developed over the last 40 years. These treatments have proved to be effective in increasing the patients’ sense of dignity, purpose, and meaning, and to reduce demoralization, anxiety, and existential distress at the end of life. Also Family Focused Grief Therapy (FFGT) and grief therapy have shown to be effective in overcoming anxiety, depression, and complicated grief symptoms both before and after loss. Psychotherapy should thus be considered a mandatory ingredient of palliative care.
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McGilchrist, Iain. Depression Is Not Like Anything On Earth. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198801900.003.0001.
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This chapter describes depression and its various symptoms from the point of view of a psychiatrist. The chapter argues that depression is not the same as being sad and certainly not the same as anxiety or even panic. It is something like a deep existential terror that seeps into the sufferer’s bones and poisons their blood. It may be accompanied by a tormenting restlessness, in which every single decision is excruciatingly hard. Depression is an umbrella term for many conditions, such as having a difficult personality that makes you perpetually unhappy, or suffering from a deadly episodic illness. The chapter talks about experiences with bouts of depression and medication and the use of alternative remedies and therapies.
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Krauter, Cheryl. Roots of Authenticity. Edited by Cheryl Krauter. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190636364.003.0001.
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This chapter demonstrates the value of incorporating the humanistic–existential psychotherapy framework into the cancer healthcare provider–patient relationship. The existential humanistic framework focuses on helping people free themselves from obsessive worries and scary stories by assisting them to understand and work with the reality of living with uncertainty. A humanistic approach is oriented toward a compassionate, nonpathological frame that promotes acceptance, reflection, and relationship. This viewpoint suggests redefining professional competence as something that allows for compassionate engagement with patients, other professionals, and most important, with oneself. Presenting the foundations of humanistic psychology, the chapter illustrates the benefits of this type of relational perspective as it translates to working with life-threatening illness and post-treatment cancer care.
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Grua, David W. Joseph Smith’s Missouri Prison Letters and the Mormon Textual Community. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190274375.003.0006.
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During winter 1838–1839, the Mormon community faced existential crisis. On 27 October 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs declared all Mormons to be enemies of the state, and unless they disavowed their religion they would be required to depart Missouri or risk “extermination.” Missouri officials charged Joseph Smith and other church leaders with treason and other crimes and confined them in a county jail. David W. Grua’s chapter, “Joseph Smith’s Missouri Prison Letters and the Latter-day Saint Textual Community,” places Smith’s letters from jail within the historical genre of the prison letter. Grua contends that Smith’s letters sought to make the church’s catastrophe in Missouri comprehensible by connecting suffering with a foundational tenet of the Mormon religion—revelation. Smith’s prison epistles functioned as ligatures that textually bound the scattered Latter-day Saint community together.
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Zaccheo, Vincenzo, and Zachary Simmons. Quality of life in ALS: What is it and how do we measure it? Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198757726.003.0002.
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Because of the limited range of treatments available for ALS, care is centred on maximizing quality of life (QoL). There is no universal definition of QoL, and no single instrument of choice with which to measure it. Health-related QoL (HRQOL) refers to physical and mental health status, whereas global QoL incorporates socioeconomic and existential factors outside the medical realm. Instruments for measuring may be generic or disease-specific. With the exception of bulbar function, QoL in patients with ALS is largely independent of physical strength and function, but is related to psychological and existential factors, and possibly to social supports, religiosity, and multidisciplinary clinic care. The ‘response shift’ phenomenon generally results in stable QoL over time in those with ALS. The choice of a QoL instrument depends on the goals of the user, and depends on whether it is being used for individual clinical care, measuring research outcomes, or assessing groups of individuals.
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Heisel, Marnin J., and Paul R. Duberstein. Working Sensitively and Effectively to Reduce Suicide Risk Among Older Adults. Edited by Phillip M. Kleespies. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199352722.013.25.
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Suicide is a uniquely human phenomenon, necessitating a human response. Suicide disproportionately claims the lives of older adults, and men in particular. Effective clinical practice with at-risk older adults requires sensitivity to contributing developmental, intrapersonal, social, and existential factors. Whereas the presence of suicide thoughts and behavior may be conceptualized as potential signs of an incipient mental health emergency, demanding quick and decisive action, working clinically with at-risk older adults nevertheless extends temporally beyond moments of behavioral crisis and conceptually beyond risk assessment and management. The field of later-life suicide prevention is in its relative infancy; however, progress is being made in investigating associated risk and resiliency factors and in developing, testing, and disseminating approaches to assessment and intervention. We provide an overview of the literature and call for a more sensitive, compassionate, and effective approach to suicide prevention among older adults, drawing on individually tailored and humanistic-existential approaches to care.
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Viladesau, Richard. The Wisdom and Power of the Cross. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197516522.001.0001.
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This volume is the fifth in a series dealing with the passion and death of Christ—symbolized by “the cross”—in Christian theology and the arts. It examines the way the Passion of Christ has been thought about by theologians and portrayed by artists and musicians in the modern and contemporary world. It examines the traditional approaches to soteriology in contrast to revisionist theologies that take up the challenge of understanding the meaning of the cross in the light of critical historical studies and modern science. These provide new understandings of traditional concepts like “original sin,” “redemption,” and “substitution.” A new Christian spirituality of “the cross” is suggested by the insights of feminist and liberation theologies, which provide an existential interpretation and a need to combat human suffering rather than accepting it as a “cross” willed by God. Contemporary art and music reveal both the lasting power of traditional images of the Passion and new possibilities of expression.
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Benatar, David. The Human Predicament. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190633813.001.0001.
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The Human Predicament engages life’s big questions. Are our lives meaningless? Is death bad? Would immortality be better? Alternatively, should we hasten our deaths by acts of suicide? Many people are tempted to offer comforting, optimistic answers to these existential questions. The Human Predicament offers a less sanguine assessment and defends a substantial, but not unmitigated, pessimism. It is argued that while our lives can have some meaning, we are ultimately the insignificant beings that we fear we are. There is no point to human life as a whole, and individual human lives have no cosmic purpose. Nor is meaning the only way in which our lives are deficient. A candid appraisal reveals that the quality of life, although less bad for some people than for others, leaves much to be desired in even the best cases. Death, however, is not generally the solution. It exacerbates rather than mitigates our cosmic meaninglessness. It can release us from suffering but even when it does, it imposes another cost—annihilation. The human predicament is thus forged by both life and death. This unfortunate state of affairs has nuanced implications for how we should think about immortality and suicide, which are also discussed in The Human Predicament.
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Feldman, Ilana. Life Lived in Relief. University of California Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520299627.001.0001.
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Palestinian refugees’ experience of displacement is among the lengthiest in history. Life Lived in Relief explores this community’s engagement with humanitarian assistance over a seventy-year period and their persistent efforts over this long time span to alter their present and future conditions. Even as humanitarian intervention is conceived as crisis-driven and focused on survival, protracted displacement is a common circumstance, necessitating long-term humanitarian presence. The book describes the operational challenges of oscillating between chronic conditions and repeating emergency situations as “punctuated humanitarianism.” Punctuated humanitarianism also means that people move through different relationships with the humanitarian apparatus. Palestinian refugee politics is buffeted between near and far futures, close and distant geographies, and immediate needs and existential claims. This politics is expressed not only in the register of suffering but also as aspiration, existence, and refusal. These multiplicities are often discordant, but they persist together. The “politics of living” in and against humanitarianism is central to what it has meant to be Palestinian since 1948. It also provides new insights into the possibilities of political life in precarious conditions. The story of Palestinians and humanitarianism is illustrative of life and relief in the many circumstances of protracted displacement across the globe.
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DeConick, April D. The Gnostic New Age. Columbia University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.7312/columbia/9780231170765.001.0001.
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Gnosticism is a countercultural spirituality that forever changed the practice of Christianity. Before it emerged in the second century, passage to the afterlife required obedience to God and king. Gnosticism proposed that human beings were manifestations of the divine, unsettling the hierarchical foundations of the ancient world. Subversive and revolutionary, Gnostics taught that prayer and mediation could bring human beings into an ecstatic spiritual union with a transcendent deity. This mystical strain affected not just Christianity but many other religions, and it characterizes our understanding of the purpose and meaning of religion today. In The Gnostic New Age, April D. DeConick recovers this vibrant underground history to prove that Gnosticism was not suppressed or defeated by the Catholic Church long ago, nor was the movement a fabrication to justify the violent repression of alternative forms of Christianity. Gnosticism alleviated human suffering, soothing feelings of existential brokenness and alienation through the promise of renewal as God. DeConick begins in ancient Egypt and follows with the rise of Gnosticism in the Middle Ages, the advent of theosophy and other occult movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contemporary New Age spiritual philosophies. As these theories find expression in science-fiction and fantasy films, DeConick sees evidence of Gnosticism’s next incarnation. Her work emphasizes the universal, countercultural appeal of a movement that embodies much more than a simple challenge to religious authority.
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Davidson, Arnold. Spiritual Exercises, Improvisation, and Moral Perfectionism. Edited by George E. Lewis and Benjamin Piekut. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195370935.013.26.
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Abstract: Beginning with Pierre Hadot’s idea of spiritual exercises and Stanley Cavell’s conception of moral perfectionism, this essay argues that improvisation can be understood as a practice of spiritual self-transformation. Focusing on the example of Sonny Rollins, the essay investigates the ways in which Rollins’ improvisations embody a series of philosophical concepts and practices: the care of the self, the Stoic exercise of cosmic consciousness, the problem of moral exemplarity, the ideas, found in the later Foucault, of a limit attitude and an experimental attitude, and so on. The underlying claim of the essay is that improvisation is not only an aesthetic exercise, but also a social and ethical practice that can give rise to existential transformations.
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Peteet, John R. Geriatric and End-of-Life Psychiatry. Edited by John R. Peteet, Mary Lynn Dell, and Wai Lun Alan Fung. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190681968.003.0014.
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As the number of older individuals grows, ethical challenges in their care become more obvious. When an elder loses critical faculties, do they become less of a person? What does it mean to respect the autonomy of an individual who is becoming increasingly dependent on others? How can a psychiatrist contribute to optimal care at the end of life? What is the most appropriate response to requests for assisted suicide? How should clinicians address the existential challenges and spiritual needs of the elderly, and of their caregivers? Answering these questions requires appreciating deeply both their psychiatric and religious/spiritual dimensions. As an example, we consider a case of depression and loss of faith.
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Peterson, Michael L. C. S. Lewis and the Christian Worldview. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190201111.001.0001.
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C. S. Lewis is one of the most influential and beloved Christian writers of the past century, and interest in him grows as books about his fantasy, fiction, and biography continue to appear. Although Lewis’s personal journey was a deeply philosophical search for the most adequate worldview, the few extant books about his Christian philosophy focus on specific topics rather than his worldview as a whole. In this book, Michael Peterson develops a comprehensive, coherent framework for understanding Lewis’s Christian worldview—from his arguments from reason, morality, and desire to his ideas about Incarnation, Trinity, and Atonement. All worldviews address fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, human nature, morality, and meaning. Peterson therefore examines Lewis’s Christian approach to these same questions in interaction with other worldviews. Accenting that the intellectual strength and existential relevance of Lewis’s works rest on his philosophical acumen as well as his Christian orthodoxy—which he famously called “mere Christianity”—Peterson skillfully shows how Lewis’s Christian thought engages a variety of important issues raised by believers and nonbelievers alike, including: the problem of evil and suffering, the problem of religious diversity, the problem of meaning, the relation of prayer and providence, the relation of science and religion, and the nature of humanity. Just as Lewis was gifted in communicating philosophical ideas and arguments in an accessible style, Peterson has artfully crafted a major contribution to Lewis scholarship which will interest specialists and benefit the general reader.
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Beer, Yishai. Military Professionalism and Humanitarian Law. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190881146.001.0001.
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This book seeks to revitalize the humanitarian mission of the international law governing armed conflict, which is being frustrated due to states’ actual practice. In order to achieve its two aims—creating an environment in which full abidance by the law becomes an attainable norm, thus facilitating the second and more important aim of reducing human suffering—it calls for the acknowledgment of realpolitik considerations that dictate states’ and militaries’ behavior. This requires recognition of the core interests of law-abiding states, fighting in their own self-defense—those that, from their militaries’ professional perspective, are essential in order to exercise their defense. Internalizing the importance of existential security interests, when drawing the contours of the law, should not automatically come at the expense of the core values of the humanitarian agenda—for example, the distinction rule. Rather, it allows more room for the humanitarian arena. The suggested tool to allow for such an improved dialogue is the standards and principles of military professionalism. Militaries function in a professional manner; they respect their respective doctrines, operational principles, fighting techniques, and values. Their performances are not random or incidental. The suggested paradigm surfaces and leverages the constraining elements hidden in military professionalism. It suggests a new paradigm in balancing the principles of military necessity and humanity, it deals with the legality of a preemptive strike and the leveraging of military strategy as a constraining tool, and it offers a normative framework for introducing deterrence within the current contours of the law.
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Ellis, Erin M., and Rebecca A. Ferrer. Decision Making in Cancer Prevention and Control. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190499037.003.0020.
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Being diagnosed with cancer introduces the need to make many high-stakes decisions about treatments, clinical trial participation, palliative care, advanced care planning, and (sometimes) end-of-life preferences. These decisions can be intensely emotional themselves, and occur within the affectively laden context of cancer-related issues, such as symptom management, interpersonal concerns, and existential questions about life and death. This chapter outlines how affect/emotion influences several decisions faced by cancer patients, and how emotions are relevant to the interpersonal context in which these decisions occur. Emotion has pervasive and predictable—sometimes deleterious and sometimes advantageous—influences on decision making. Fundamental knowledge regarding how affect influences cancer-related decision making could be leveraged to develop interventions to optimize decisions about treatment, clinical trial participation, and palliative care among cancer patients and survivors, thereby improving cancer-related outcomes.
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Rosen, David H., and Uyen B. Hoang. Medicine as a Human Experience. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190628871.003.0001.
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Chapter 1, “Medicine as a Human Experience,” examines the foundational principles of patient-centered care, a shift from the historical paradigm in favor of the illness and doctor-centered approach. The four essential principles that underlie all of medicine as a human experience are acceptance, empathy, conceptualization, and competence. Acceptance and empathy are essential to developing a healing partnership with one’s patients. Both stem from self-awareness, for it is difficult to accept another human being if you have not first accepted yourself. Conceptualization, using the biopsychosocial model and even expanding it to include issues of existential meaning and the human spirit, is related directly to comprehensive medical care. All are integral to our fourth principle, competence, which demands the clinician appraise clinical data critically to see the overall picture in balance with the integration of the other foundational principles.
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Krauter, Cheryl. The Healing Power of Authenticity. Edited by Cheryl Krauter. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190636364.003.0003.
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This chapter translates a humanistic therapeutic approach to cancer survivorship care. Being seen, heard, and understood for who you are and where you are in the given moments of your life is a basic human need; this essential aspect of relationship is the bedrock of effective communication. To present practical approaches in clinical practice to enhance relationships with patients, topics in this chapter include engagement with patients; utilization of here-and-now communication; use of empathy in interactions; the powerful uses of bringing presence into the work of helping patients face emotional distress; the existential dilemma of meaning; the differences between fixing a problem and being present; doing versus being. This chapter illustrates the importance of developing the practice of listening as a guide for assessment and making appropriate referrals to psychotherapy or other integrative practices.
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Nye, Rebecca. The spiritual strengths of young children. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198747109.003.0008.
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This chapter outlines childhood’s spiritual strengths and needs. Psychological theories and empirical research suggest that spiritual capacity is a natural condition of early childhood, arising in everyday experience. Contemporary scholarship identifies key strengths that underpin childhood spirituality. These include children’s heightened sensitivity to non-verbal, embodied, and emotional ways of knowing, and a less dominating verbal and intellectual approach to experience. This privileges children’s spiritual capacity for ‘relational consciousness’, and is evident in attention to mystery, delight, despair, wonder, the present moment, a sense of place, and connotative meaning-making. Without sensitive approaches to nurture in education and care, these capacities are vulnerable to erosion. Four areas of spiritual need are proposed: for child-led listening, for adult presence and humility, for space (physical, emotional, and auditory), and a need for imaginative play. Together, these can provide safe ways to explore the profound existential issues common in even the youngest children.
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Stanghellini, Giovanni. Second-order empathy. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198792062.003.0035.
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This chapter reports a case study of ‘manipulation’. It argues that the case study of manipulation confirms that the supposition that the Other lives in a world just like my own is often the cause of serious misunderstandings—the source of negative emotions and of misleading value judgements and stigmatization that interfere with one’s capacity to care for other persons and to make sense of their behaviour. In order to empathize with these persons and make sense of their behaviour we need to acknowledge the existential difference, the particular autonomy, which separates us from their way of being in the world. Any forgetting of this difference—for instance between my own world and that of a person who ‘manipulates’ the others—will be an obstacle to empathic understanding, since these people live in a life-world of which the structure is (at least in part) different from my own.
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Rowe, Mark. Contemporary Buddhism and Death. Edited by Michael Jerryson. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199362387.013.33.
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Funerary Buddhism emerges out of Buddhism’s encounter with modernization, both in Asia and the West from the nineteenth century. It refers to a broad spectrum of textual, material, ritual, sociocultural, and institutional forms connected to the immediate and ongoing care of the dead. It implicates everything from Buddhist institutions to local temples, local civil codes to international law, and sectarian intellectuals to popular culture. A crucial aspect of funerary Buddhism includes its use as a foil, particularly the ways in which Buddhist modernists have tried to explain away many aspects of Buddhist funerary practices as not real Buddhism. Forced to act as the “other” to various notions of true Buddhism, funerary Buddhism thus also represents, in countries such as Japan, a sort of existential crisis whereby local priests are told that their ongoing dependence on funerary ritual is at odds with the true teachings of their sects.
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Wein, Simon, and Lea Baider. Coping in palliative medicine. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199656097.003.0172.
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Coping is a universal experience. Anxiety, existential distress, physical discomfort, depression, anger, and the wish to die are some of the stressors that patients have to cope with in palliative medicine. Coping strategies can be beneficial or detrimental. Earlier concepts emphasized coping as a way to control and manage the stressors. Recent literature has raised the idea that ‘just coping’ might not be good enough, but aiming to grow psychologically as a response to the stress could be preferable. There are several theories about the nature of coping and therapies include narrative life review, meaning therapy, dignity therapy, hope, courage, positive psychology, fighting spirit, and mobilizing social supports and personal relationships. Spiritual care and chaplaincy have also emerged as important resources for some patients. Most people use life-long coping styles that they bring to the illness and support is best directed to embellishing the good coping traits and dis-encouraging the bad ones.
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Fillion, Lise, Mélanie Vachon, and Pierre Gagnon. Enhancing Meaning at Work and Preventing Burnout. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199837229.003.0014.
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Working in palliative care (PC) can be challenging, distressing, and rewarding. This chapter discusses and presents some suggestions to deal with particular challenges in introducing the meaning-centered intervention (MCI) for PC clinicians. Its format and content are founded on the meaning-centered psychotherapy developed for cancer patients. Frankl’s existential therapeutic approach, called logotherapy, serves as the underlying theoretical framework. The chapter describes the intervention, the purpose of which is to create strategies for enhancing meaning at work and for preventing burnout. The chapter provides an understanding of workplace stress, stressors specific to PC, psychosocial risk factors that may lead to burnout, and key ingredients retained for intervention. Elaboration and content of the MCI-PC are described. Quantitative and qualitative studies conducted with PC nurses are presented. Results support the assumption that the MCI-PC can enhance meaning at work by increasing perceived benefits and by linking coherently values and intention, choices and actions.
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Stronegger, Willibald J., and Kristin Attems, eds. Das Lebensende zwischen Ökonomie und Ethik. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.5771/9783845298184.
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Healthcare at an advanced age and at the end of one’s life is increasingly characterised by an entrepreneurial spirit, which in turn is guided by economic principles. It remains questionable whether organising the end of one’s life based on efficiency criteria leaves sufficient room for personal encounters and individualism. As indisputable as the significance of high-quality care is, especially at the end of someone’s life, the constant progression of technological advancement and economisation in dealing with death and dying is nevertheless endangered by the dominance of ‘instrumental reason’, which often leaves little room for holistic and individual approaches. The contributions to this volume explore ethical and existential realities at the end of a life and economic rationalities in providing end-of-life care. With contributions by Stefan Dinges, Angelika Feichtner, Gerald Gredinger, Olivia Kada, Franz Küberl, Christian Lagger, Claudia Lohr, Sylvia Reitter-Pfoertner, Corinna Schmohl, Patrick Schuchter, Willibald J. Stronegger, Christine Trischak Preface: Willibald J. Stronegger und Kristin Attems
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Calonne, David Stephen. R. Crumb. University Press of Mississippi, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.14325/mississippi/9781496831859.001.0001.
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Robert Crumb: Literature, Autobiography, and the Quest for Self is the first monograph to explore the intersection between Crumb’s love of literature, his search for the meaning of life and the ways he connects his own autobiography with the themes of the writers he has admired. Crumb’s comics from the beginning reflected the fact that he was a voracious reader from childhood and perused a variety of authors including Charles Dickens, J.D. Salinger, and, during his adolescence, Beat writers like Jack Kerouac. He was profoundly influenced by music, especially the blues, and the ecstatic power of music appears in his artwork throughout his career. The first chapter explores the ways Robert Crumb illustrates works by William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Charles Bukowski. The book continues with individual chapters devoted to Crumb’s illustrations of biographies of blues musicians Jelly Roll Morton and Charley Patton; Philip K. Dick; Jean-Paul Sartre; Franz Kafka; and concludes with an exploration of Crumb’s illustrations to the book of Genesis. In all his drawings accompanying literary texts, Crumb returns to a number of key themes regarding his personal spiritual quest such as suffering and existential solitude; the search for romantic and sexual love; the impact of entheogens such as LSD on his quest for answers to his cosmic questions. We discover that Crumb gradually embraces a mysticism rooted in his studies of Gnosticism. In the final chapter on the book of Genesis, readers may observe the ways Crumb continues his critique of monotheistic religion in a variety of subtle ways. Robert Crumb: Literature, Autobiography, and the Quest for Self concludes with an Epilogue which discusses Crumb’s present-day life in France and the ways he has continued to engage with spiritual and philosophical themes in his later work.
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Black, Helen K., John T. Groce, and Charles E. Harmon. The Hidden Among the Hidden. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190602321.001.0001.
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The question of our research and our book is as follows: What is the experience of African-American elder male caregivers? Research and literature on African-American older males as informal, primary caregivers of demented or impaired family members, particularly spouses, are negligible. Male caregivers in general have been called “hidden” caregivers. Thus, we named the elderly African-American male caregivers we interviewed for this book “the hidden among the hidden.” We asked the experts—a group of 13 African-American male caregivers—to discuss the concrete and nonmaterial aspects of giving care to an impaired loved one. Our book addresses the knowledge gap about African-American male caregivers by revealing, in case-study form, their experiences of caregiving in the context of their personal biography and cohort history. Our focus is the practical and existential meaning of daily life as a caregiver. The men discussed in this book are over 60 years of age, most are long married, and they have been caregivers in their homes for at least 5 years and as long as 25 years. Their loved ones, particularly wives, suffered from a variety of illnesses and debilities that necessitated hands-on care. The book examines varied aspects of the caregiving experience, the unique generativity of men who give care, and the emotions and conflicts about decision making that emerge in day-to-day caregiving.