ABSTRACT
The rationalization of suffering is that it is a process allowing persons to withstand, overcome, even glorify pain, providing there is sufficient social support to render it meaningful and relevant for goals understood to be constructive. Philosophers, social scientists and writers have long been intrigued by this process. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that “What makes people rebel against suffering is not really suffering itself but the senselessness of suffering. … Man … does not deny suffering per se; he wants it, he seeks it out, provided that it can be given a meaning” (Nietzsche, 1956, pp. 200 and 298). Following Nietzsche, Max Weber noted that suffering can be transformed into religion when made meaningful through social and cultural means (Weber, 1946). And in his study of “anomic suicide,” Emile Durkheim argued that not misery but lack of group support in time of stress led to the anomie of self-destruction (Durkheim, 1951).
