The Importance of Suffering - The Value and Meaning of Emotional Discontent

In this book James Davies considers emotional suffering as part and parcel of what it means to live and develop as a human being, rather than as a mental health problem requiring only psychiatric, antidepressant or cognitive treatment. This book therefore offers a new perspective on emotional discontent and discusses how we can engage with it clinically, personally and socially to uncover its productive value.

The Importance of Suffering explores a relational theory of understanding emotional suffering suggesting that suffering, does not spring from one dimension of our lives, but is often the outcome of how we relate to the world internally - in terms of our personal biology, habits and values, and externally - in terms of our society, culture and the world around us. Davies suggests that suffering is a healthy call-to-change and shouldn''t be chemically anesthetised or avoided. The book challenges conventional thinking by arguing that if we understand and manage suf