What We Mean When We Talk About Suffering—and Why Eric Cassell Should Not Have the Last Word

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of suffering and its relationship to medical practice by focusing on the paradigmatic work of Eric Cassell. First, it explains Cassell's influential model of suffering. Second, it surveys various critiques of Cassell. Next it outlines the authors' concern...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perspectives in biology and medicine 2019, Vol.62 (1), p.95-110
Main Authors: Tate, Tyler, Pearlman, Robert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abdomen
Bioethics
Cancer
Decision making
Illnesses
Medicine
Pain
Patients
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper analyzes the phenomenon of suffering and its relationship to medical practice by focusing on the paradigmatic work of Eric Cassell. First, it explains Cassell's influential model of suffering. Second, it surveys various critiques of Cassell. Next it outlines the authors' concerns with Cassell's model: it is aggressive, obscure, and fails to capture important features of the suffering experience. Finally, the authors propose a conceptual framework to help clarify the distinctive nature of subjective patient suffering. This framework contains two necessary conditions: (1) a loss of a person's sense of self, and (2) a negative affective experience. The authors suggest how this framework can be used in the medical encounter to promote clinician-patient communication and the relief of suffering.
ISSN:0031-5982
1529-8795
1529-8795
DOI:10.1353/pbm.2019.0005