Subjectivity and Suffering in American Culture: Possible Selves (Culture, Mind, and Society)

Winner of The Boyer Prize from the Society for Psychological Anthropology!!!This book explores the experience of suffering in order to shed light on the nature of the human self. Using an intimate life history approach, it examines ways people struggle to cope with experiences that can shatter their lives: a diagnosis of cancer, the death of a spouse, a parent’s mental illness. The volume takes readers deep into private worlds of suffering in American culture, and invites reflection on what the subjectivity of suffering tells us about being human. Addressing universal themes in a way that fully recognizes the individuality of those who experience a personal crisis, Parish shows how individuals personalize the cultural and psychological resources in which they find their possible selves.

Winner of The Boyer Prize from the Society for Psychological Anthropology!!!

This book explores the experience of suffering in order to shed light on the nature of the human self.  Using an intimate life history approach, it examines ways people struggle to cope with experiences that can shatter their lives: a diagnosis of cancer, the death of a spouse, a parent’s mental illness. The volume takes readers deep into private worlds of suffering in American culture, and invites reflection on what the subjectivity of suffering tells us about being human. Addressing universal themes in a way that fully recognizes the individuality of those who experience a personal crisis, Parish shows how individuals personalize the cultural and psychological resources in which they find their possible selves.

Winner ofThe Boyer Prize from the Society for Psychological Anthropology!!! This book explores the experience of suffering in order to shed light on the nature of the human self. Using an intimate life history approach, it examines ways people struggle to cope with experiences that can shatter their lives: a diagnosis of cancer, the death of a spouse, a parent s mental illness. The volume takes readers deep into private worlds of suffering in American culture, and invites reflection on what the subjectivity of suffering tells us about being human. Addressing universal themes in a way that fully recognizes the individuality of those who experience a personal crisis, Parish shows how individuals personalize the cultural and psychological resources in which they find their possible selves. Contents......Page 8 Preface......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 18 Part I: Three American Selves......Page 20 One: Born into Our Lives: Other People in the Work of Self......Page 22 Two: What a Tangled Web She Weaves: An American Widow......Page 54 Three: California Dreaming: My Days on the Cancer Ward......Page 90 Part II: Self, Suffering, Subjectivity......Page 142 Four: Toward a Psychology of Possible Selves......Page 144 Five: The Subjectivity of Suffering......Page 172 Conclusion: Wandering Home......Page 202 Notes......Page 222 References......Page 226 C......Page 230 D......Page 231 I......Page 232 O......Page 233 S......Page 234 Y......Page 235 The volume places this process--the work of self-- in the context of key insights into the self as an existential human process found in psychology and anthropology