ABSTRACT
Introduction ..............................................................................................................34 Perceptions, Emotions, and the Experience of Suffering .........................................36 Understanding Consciousness .................................................................................40 Senses of Consciousness .......................................................................................... 41
Consciousness as Wakefulness ............................................................................ 41 Consciousness as the Experience of Perceptual Contents................................... 41 Consciousness as Reportable Experience ........................................................... 42 Consciousness as Self-Awareness ....................................................................... 42
A Theory of Consciousness: How Consciousness and Awareness Happen ............. 42 The Multiple Dimensions of Perceptual Contents ................................................... 43 Modeling Consciousness-Creating a Diagram of the Body-Brain .......................44 A Linear versus an Oscillatory Model of Consciousness ........................................ 47 Loss That Evokes Grief and Threat That Evokes Fear ............................................ 51 Unrelieved Appetites and Drive States..................................................................... 51 Pain .......................................................................................................................... 52 The Threshold of Suffering ...................................................................................... 53 Suffering: Shock, Stasis, and Dissociation .............................................................. 53 Resilience and Coping .............................................................................................54 Coping Skills: Connectedness.................................................................................. 55 Coping Skills: Symbolic Representation ................................................................. 55 Coping Reactions: Disgust, Contempt, and Anger .................................................. 56 Belief Systems and Spirituality ................................................................................ 57
This book is about maldynia. Maldynia happens when pain-either directly or indirectly-evokes the experience of suffering. This chapter is about suffering. When we speak of suffering, we talk about an experience that feels bad. Suffering feels awful and terrible. Suffering is painful. Synonyms for suffering do not constitute a denition; but synonyms tell us something of its nature. Some synonyms for suffering are distress, misery, agony, anguish, torment, wretchedness, despair, excruciation, woe, helplessness, and hopelessness. I propose that an understanding of the experience of pain (and illness) requires an understanding of suffering.
