Is Suffering Good: When Families and Patients View Suffering as Redemptive and Spiritually Formative
Christina Wright, PhD., Staff Chaplain, University of Michigan Health System
Rajan Dewar, PhD., MBBS
Rev. Lindsay Bona, M.Div.
Health care providers often assume that one of their primary roles and vocational purposes is to alleviating suffering. While modern health care is based in addressing physical suffering, it now also considers how to relieve the emotional and spiritual/existential suffering that often accompanies physical suffering. This approach assumes that suffering, in all of its forms, should be reduced and leaves the question of why suffering exists to religion and other meaning making efforts. This failure of modern health care to work in conjunction with such meaning making endeavors to consider how individuals understand suffering rather than simply alleviating suffering, however, neglects the role suffering may play for some in their healing (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) process. Whether based in theology or lived experiences, as religious traditions attempt to answer why there is suffering in the world, they may find a purpose in suffering that justifies its existence. In particular, case studies suggest suffering may be seen as redemptive and/or a source of spiritual growth. Such meaning making around suffering can help patients find “good” that can come from their suffering when such suffering can’t be alleviated through modern medicine; this understanding may prove to be a helpful coping mechanism for addressing the suffering. However, the belief that suffering has a purpose may also allow patients and their families to permit or even encourage suffering when medicine attempts to alleviate it. The latter situations may produce not only a conflict between patients/families and staff but also moral distress among staff who are, from their perspective in such circumstances, causing suffering. Using case studies of patients and families of various religious traditions as well as prior research and discussion, this paper will consider the ways in which lived religious experiences allow or encourage suffering in any form for the purposes of spiritual growth and/or redemption.
Rajan Dewar, PhD., MBBS
Rev. Lindsay Bona, M.Div.
Health care providers often assume that one of their primary roles and vocational purposes is to alleviating suffering. While modern health care is based in addressing physical suffering, it now also considers how to relieve the emotional and spiritual/existential suffering that often accompanies physical suffering. This approach assumes that suffering, in all of its forms, should be reduced and leaves the question of why suffering exists to religion and other meaning making efforts. This failure of modern health care to work in conjunction with such meaning making endeavors to consider how individuals understand suffering rather than simply alleviating suffering, however, neglects the role suffering may play for some in their healing (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) process. Whether based in theology or lived experiences, as religious traditions attempt to answer why there is suffering in the world, they may find a purpose in suffering that justifies its existence. In particular, case studies suggest suffering may be seen as redemptive and/or a source of spiritual growth. Such meaning making around suffering can help patients find “good” that can come from their suffering when such suffering can’t be alleviated through modern medicine; this understanding may prove to be a helpful coping mechanism for addressing the suffering. However, the belief that suffering has a purpose may also allow patients and their families to permit or even encourage suffering when medicine attempts to alleviate it. The latter situations may produce not only a conflict between patients/families and staff but also moral distress among staff who are, from their perspective in such circumstances, causing suffering. Using case studies of patients and families of various religious traditions as well as prior research and discussion, this paper will consider the ways in which lived religious experiences allow or encourage suffering in any form for the purposes of spiritual growth and/or redemption.