ABSTRACT
Attempts to explain the existence of apparently random suffering are staple fare in the literature of all religious traditions. However, in the secular literature the problem of the suffering of the innocents is typically dealt with by social and political theorists, but not by psychologists (Gerstenberger and Schrage, 1980). But this problem must be addressed by those psychotherapists who choose to work within a religious model, because intense suffering often demands a spiritual solution. The effort to address the problem psychologically is a part of our attempt to clarify the psychological basis of existing religious ideas, and also to address such fundamental questions ab initio, from within the psychology of the individual in relation to the objective psyche, rather than by recourse to dogmatic, readymade answers. Panikkar (1979) has neatly summarized the standard religious approaches to suffering: Buddhism seeks to eliminate it, Hinduism seeks to deny it, Judaism and Islam seek to explain it, while Christianity tries to transfigure it. The depth psychologist must psychologize it, non-reductively. That is, a religious psychology must be able to encompass the problem of suffering in a way that is relevant to individuals by locating its meaning in the context of their entire psychology, both its developmental and teleological aspects. In the last analysis the ‘answer’ to suffering-that is, a personal way of understanding and managing it-ideally emerges from attention to the larger psyche’s comments about the situation. Such an answer may or may not be relevant to others in similar straits. It may be seen to be adapted from the existing spiritual literature, and in such a case it is authentic if it truly corresponds to the soul of the individual.
