Abstract
To understand the experiences of suffering (overwhelming somatic pain or illness and its anticipation and other forms of severe
distress arising in the socio-moral context) and facilitate healing (developing an enabling meaning and value for one’s experiences
when faced with suffering) have been the focus of medicine as a social institution throughout human history. However, the
goals of Western biomedicine in the last few centuries shifted from taking care of these experiential concerns of the sufferers
to predominantly the diagnosis and treatment of the symptoms of a disease. This article attempts to illustrate how the assumptions
of the social constructionist paradigm (with its deconstructionist and reconstructionist facets highlighted in the writings
of Kenneth J. Gergen) serve as a suitable metatheoretical framework to understand human experiences of suffering and healing.
A critical review of the writings of Eric J. Cassell and Arthur Kleinman on endorsing and researching such experiences resulted
in four themes that reaffirmed the utility of this new paradigm. These themes help comprehend that biomedicine’s ontological
claims may enhance human suffering, suffering and healing experiences are socio-historically contextualized, such experiences
are performances within human interaction and dialogic partnership between the researcher and the participant becomes a meaningful
medium to study such experiences.
distress arising in the socio-moral context) and facilitate healing (developing an enabling meaning and value for one’s experiences
when faced with suffering) have been the focus of medicine as a social institution throughout human history. However, the
goals of Western biomedicine in the last few centuries shifted from taking care of these experiential concerns of the sufferers
to predominantly the diagnosis and treatment of the symptoms of a disease. This article attempts to illustrate how the assumptions
of the social constructionist paradigm (with its deconstructionist and reconstructionist facets highlighted in the writings
of Kenneth J. Gergen) serve as a suitable metatheoretical framework to understand human experiences of suffering and healing.
A critical review of the writings of Eric J. Cassell and Arthur Kleinman on endorsing and researching such experiences resulted
in four themes that reaffirmed the utility of this new paradigm. These themes help comprehend that biomedicine’s ontological
claims may enhance human suffering, suffering and healing experiences are socio-historically contextualized, such experiences
are performances within human interaction and dialogic partnership between the researcher and the participant becomes a meaningful
medium to study such experiences.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original Article
- Pages 1-13
- DOI 10.1007/s12646-011-0143-5
- Authors
- Kumar Ravi Priya, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
- Journal Psychological Studies
- Online ISSN 0974-9861
- Print ISSN 0033-2968