Overview

Ecologies of Suffering draws on the methods of Heidegger's existential and hermeneutic phenomenology to critique the objectifying and reductive assumptions of mainstream psychopathology by contextualizing the lived-experience of mental illness and illuminating its existential and qualitative aspects. Focusing primarily on anxiety and depression, the book explores the limitations of the dominant naturalistic-scientific account and examines the disorders from a first-person perspective to show the extent to which they can disrupt and modify the structures of meaning that constitute our sense of self. The book goes on to introduce how a hermeneutic approach to psychopathology can shed light on the ways our historical situation shapes the way we diagnose and classify mental disorders and provides the discursive context through which suffers interpret and make sense of them. To this end, Ecologies of Suffering highlights the crucial need for clinicians to situate mental illness within the context of the sufferer's life-world in order to properly understand the experience. This is a valuable resource for philosophers, medical humanists, biomedical ethicists, and mental health professionals.

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9781786611888

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Contexts of Suffering is a superb addition to the philosophy of mental health, and specifically the nature of psychiatric problems. Heidegger, for many, is a guiding light in such approaches and Aho provides a masterful overview of how his work, and that of phenomenology and hermeneutics in general, can inform mental health practice and research and relates to the author's own experiences. -- Matthew Broome, Director of the Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham, UK

Author Information

Kevin Aho is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Communication and Philosophy at Florida Gulf Coast University. He is the author of Existentialism: An Introduction (2014), Heidegger’s Neglect of the Body (2009), and co-author of Body Matters: A Phenomenology of Sickness, Illness, and Disease (2008).

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