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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Soul pain
— the meaning of suffering in later life | | Author(s) | Helen K Black |
| Publisher | Baywood, Amityville, NY, 2006 |
| Pages | 209 pp (Society and aging series) |
| Source | Baywood Publishing Company, Inc., 26 Austin Avenue, PO Box 337, Amityville, NY 11701, USA. E-mail: baywood@baywood.com Web site: http://baywood.com |
| Keywords | Ill health ; Bereavement ; Living in the community ; Qualitative Studies ; Case studies ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The gerontological literature has equated suffering with depression, grief, pain and sadness. This book explores the multi-faceted experience of suffering in old age. Older adults suffer for a variety of reasons, including illness, bereavement, life disappointment and life experiences related to gender, ethnic background and religion. The author provides interpretations of the narratives of suffering related by community-dwelling older people living in Philadelphia in their responses to her open-ended interview questions (Appendix), along with the personal meaning of suffering that lies within each narrative. Through the individual cases, the author shows how older people assimilate the emotional and spiritual fractiousness of suffering into a life already labouring under the "work" of old age, at a stage in life when personal resources have diminished and time seems to be running out. Older people's definitions of suffering, and their perceptions of its value, emerged from the uniqueness of their lives and the profundity of their experiences. (KJ/RH)). |
| Accession Number | CPA-051005003 B |
| Classmark | CH: DW: K4: 3DP: 69P: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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