Citation

Tognacci S. Psychiatr. Danub. 2021; 33(Suppl 4): 808-821.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Facultas Universitatis Studiorum Zagrabiensis - Danube Symposion of Psychiatry)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

35026807

Abstract

This contribution aims to explore the main aspects and concerns due to suffering and illness in psychological and spiritual terms. It will be given to everyone in life to make experiences of suffering and sickness - even if for the latter not necessarily in the first person -, dramas and fundamental faces of humanity inaggirabili of our earthly pilgrimage, despite the narcissism of a society that tends to anesthetize every little human pain and suffering. In general one is never fully equipped to face suffering and illness, especially when it involves a lot of pain, and basically all possible declensions to understand them fail, at least partially, the enterprise. Without any pretension of resolving the issue, occasionally bringing it up may offer or remind us of the existence of some possibility of meaning and significance, thus contributing to greater understanding and acceptance. Appealing to the Bible and to Christ himself, and particularly to some extremely significant experiences, including the figure of Job and the experience of V. Frankl, the "nonsense" of suffering and illness could take on an unthought out meaning and face, and encounter a healing that goes beyond the purely, though important, corporal. The revisitation of the psychological and spiritual dimensions, the latter not always easily accepted, sometimes completely rejected, could thus become weapons and support in the common and often daily intrusiveness of suffering and illness. Thus, after a brief anthropological passage, these will be addressed in their main psychological and spiritual dimensions, in order to find possible ways of meaning, which often seemingly or superficially seems impossible to exist.

Language: en