From unbearable suffering to bearable suffering

Professor of the Faculty of Theology and Director of the Department of Moral Theology and Praxis of Christian Life Javier de la Torre publishes the work Del sufrimiento insoportable al sufrimiento soportable. Caminos de transformación y afrontamiento del sufrimiento in Editorial Dykinson (2024, ISBN: 9788410703209). In addition to being editor, Professor de la Torre participates as a writer in this work in the collection "Bioética para pensar".

The following is a summary of the book:

This is a research book carried out within the Bioethics Group of UNIJES (Jesuit Universities of Spain) comprising the Universities of Deusto (Bilbao), Comillas (Madrid), Loyola (Andalusia) and the Institut Borja de Bioética (Barcelona).

These pages are intended to be a door to hope in the midst of the difficulties of the suffering that grips so many human beings. Human beings can always do something in the midst of their loss of firmness, in-firmness, their fragility. Suffering never completely depresses us, whether it is unbearable or bearable. The human being is always more than a patient and a sufferer. He is a being full of capacities.

For this reason, we have chosen some areas that seemed particularly relevant to highlight the various strategies that patients, families and health professionals can use to deal with suffering in different contexts such as oncology, dementia, childhood, the elderly and life exhaustion. These aspects do not, by any means, cover the entire map of human suffering, but they do cover spaces that are very much inhabited by many people wounded by suffering. Apart from these five areas of suffering, we analyse two perspectives that are particularly powerful in dealing with suffering in many human beings: emotions and spirituality.

It is our hope that these pages will show ways out of, into and out of suffering. Simply and nothing more than that is the intention of the authors. There are always alternatives that can change the direction of the wind of suffering. Be it a journey, a reading, a film, a thought, a conversation, a feeling, a memory, a prayer, a look, a cry, a dream or a song. No night can ever turn out the light completely.

The book can be purchased from the Publisher's website, by clicking here.

Professor Javier de la Torre Díaz holds a PhD in Law, Director of the Department of Moral Theology and Praxis of Christian Life, President of the Ethics Committee of the Universidad Pontificia Comillas and Director of the Revista Iberoamericana de Bioética, being a recognised expert in Bioethics and Moral Theology.

All the latest news from the Faculty of Theology can be found on the website, in the monthly newsletter and on the social network X (formerly Twitter).