ABSTRACT
Most people occasionally ask themselves questions such as the following: Is there any purpose in life? Is there anything really worthwhile? Is there any real justice in life? Ordinary people ask themselves questions of this sort either in moods of despair – after a bereavement, the failure of long-term plans, a betrayal, the suffering of injustice or indifference, and so on – or in occasional moods of reflection on their own lives or on the world about them. Doctors and social workers have more reason to ask such questions than many of us because they more frequently come up against situations which create despair. Doctors frequently encounter death, and not simply the death of the old but of those who still had much to give when they were struck down; and they can see the misery which death brings to relatives and friends. Social workers encounter the wretchedness of those who are lonely, whose lives are being wasted because of some disadvantage of birth, physical, mental or social; and of those who through drink or other wasting habits have brought misery on themselves. Constant exposure to such situations inevitably generates in the reflective person questions about the ultimate nature of things, about the meaning of life.
