The Gifts Of Suffering: A Guide To Resilience And Renewal

by Polly Young-Eisendrath

A Jungian psychotherapist and author of You're Not What I Expected explains how readers can grow and find fulfillment through the experience of coping with life's unavoidable sorrows and tragedies.

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst, psychologist, and psychotherapist in private practice. She is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont and the founder and director of the Institute for Dialogue Therapy. She is past president of the Vermont Association for Psychoanalytic Studies and a founding member of the Vermont Institute for the Psychotherapies. Polly is also the chairperson of Enlightening Conversations, a series of conversational conferences which bring together participants from the front lines of Buddhism and psychoanalysis. Polly has published sixteen books, as well as many chapters and articles, that have been translated into more than twenty languages, including The Self-Esteem Trap: Raising Confident and Compassionate Kids in an Age of Self-Importance> and Love Between Equals: Relationship as a Spiritual Path>.

Reviews

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. I read it after I read another of Ms. Young-Eisendrath's books, You're Not What I expected.. That book was so good I wanted to read another of her titles. I found this one on a friends shelf and now have my own copy which I am rereading. This isn't just a book of theory, its one with perspectives from people's lives that illustrate the points Ms Young-Eisendrath is making. This book is a Jungian's therapists take on the Buddhist Path of developing compassion and the spiritual journey with suffering. I highly recommend it.
Here is a good and typical excerpt:
"Suffering always involves a fantasy, a fear,a thought or a commentary interjected between ourselves and our experiences. Whether our pain is real or entirely imagined, the fantasy and fears about the pain can hold our attention and keep us feeling off center and isolated. This interjection of discontent or fear between an experience and its meaning creates the misery that stagnates us. When you notice how you do this, you begin to see how much misery you create in addition to whatever necessary pain or loss you must endure. Through the acceptance and understanding of actual pain, we begin to develop the knowledge and compassion that are the unspoken benefits of adversity."

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Jungian psychotherapist discusses how suffering can be viewed differently and embraced as part of unending change rather than the enemy. Also, she espouses the Buddhist notion that we need to accept the personal responsibility we have in creating and maintaing our some of our own suffering.
She uses her personal experience as well as case studies to illustrate points. Suffering, is better thought of as discontent but the ideas apply also to a range of suffering and loss. Interesting read with good case histories. Well written, thoughtful read.