Module: Suffering, Survival & Hope

Module Specifications.

Current Academic Year 2024 - 2025

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Date posted: September 2024

Module Title	Suffering, Survival & Hope
Module Code	NS5007 (ITS) / NUR1191 (Banner)
Faculty	Science & Health	School	Nursing, PsyT & Comm Health
Module Co-ordinator	-
Module Teachers	-
NFQ level	9	Credit Rating	10
Pre-requisite	Not Available
Co-requisite	Not Available
Compatibles	Not Available
Incompatibles	Not Available

None
Array

Description

This module is most essentially about suffering. It is about direct experiences of suffering and ‘what it is like’ to suffer in various health care contexts. It is about responses to suffering and what persons do in acknowledging or denying the lived realities of distress and adversity. It is about how persons ‘keep going’ or ‘hang on’ during times of suffering, and the various implications of ‘survivorship’. And it is about how persons hope when they suffer, what influences such hope and how this can be significant for their futures.

Learning Outcomes

1. Discuss the meanings and significance of suffering in healthcare contexts
2. Explore responses to suffering in health care by reference to institutional, discursive, interpersonal and personal issues
3. Evaluate notions of resistance and acceptance as they relate to persons who are suffering in health care contexts
4. Explore the meanings and implications of survival in health care
5. Explore the significance of hope and the conditions in which it is promoted

*Type*	*Hours*	*Description*
Workload	Full-time hours per semester
Lecture	8	Participation in lecture-discussion
Online activity	50	Incorporating Moodle discussion and use of on-line materials
Assignment Completion	50	Preparation of an essay
Independent Study	112	Incorporating reading and use of library
Seminars	30	Preparation for, and participation in, student-led seminars
Total Workload: 250

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

Suffering
The meanings of suffering and its significance in health care; suffering and narrativity; suffering as loss of self; suffering and the body; normativity and suffering; technology, medicalisation and suffering; praxis theory of suffering.

Suffering and the Other
Suffering as a call to the Other;institutional denial and acknowledgement; social systems as a defence against anxiety; bystanding and whistleblowing; persecution and disregarding the Face of the Other; sufferer-led care.

Resistance and acceptance
Pathologising resistance; taking a stand on one's own being; resistance and contingency; identity entrapment; downward and upward acceptance; mindfulness.

Survival
Stoicism; enduring for the Other; religion and survival; storying survival; survivor activism

Hope
Concepts of hope; survival and hope;hope and demoralization; anxiety-inflected hope;the placebo in health care; hope, health and achievement; conditions for hopefulness; critiques of positive thinking.

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment	0%	Examination Weight	0%

Type	Description	% of total	Assessment Date
Course Work Breakdown
Essay	On the role of the Other in the face of suffering	50%	Week 11
Participation	Participation in Moodle-based discussion fora	20%	As required
Presentation	Self-assessed and peer-assessed participation in student-led seminars focused on relevant articles from the literature.	30%	As required

Reassessment Requirement Type
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories: Resit category 1: A resit is available for both* components of the module. Resit category 2: No resit is available for a 100% continuous assessment module. Resit category 3: No resit is available for the continuous assessment component where there is a continuous assessment and examination element.
* ‘Both’ is used in the context of the module having a Continuous Assessment/Examination split; where the module is 100% continuous assessment, there will also be a resit of the assessment
This module is category -

Indicative Reading List

Stanley Cohen: 2001, States of denial, Polity Press, Cambridge, 0745623921
Frank, A W: 1995, The Wounded Storyteller, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 0-226-25993-5
Frank, AW: 2004, The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, medicine, and how to live, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 0-226-26015-1
Kleinman, A.: 1988, The Illness Narratives: Suffering, healing and the human condition, Basic Books, New York,
Joseph A. Amato with the assistance of David Monge; foreword by Eugen Weber: 1990, Victims and values, Greenwood Press, New York, 0275936902
Ernest Becker,: 0, The Denial of Death, 0285638971
Maddie Blackburn: 0, Sexuality and disability, 0750622520
Susan Bordo; new preface by the author; new foreword by Leslie Heywood: 2003, Unbearable weight, University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif., 9780520240544
Bowman, JL: 2011, Stoicism, Enkrasia and Happiness, iUniverse, Indiana,
Michael Burleigh: 2002, Death and deliverance, Pan, London, 9780330488396
Charmaz, K: 1991, Good days, bad days, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J., 0-8135-1967-5
Cutcliffe, J: 2004, The Inspiration of Hope in Bereavement Counselling, J Kingsley, London,
0: Smile or Die, 31358
2005: Medical and Psychosocial Aspects of Chronic Illness and Disability, Jones and Bartlett, Sudbury, 31359
2004: Man’s Search for Meaning, Rider, London, 31360
2006: Death’s Door: Modern dying and the ways we grieve, WW Norton, New York, 31361
2004: Mindfulness: Expanding the cognitive-behavioural tradition, Guilford Press, New York, 31362
2002: The challenge of sexuality in health care, Blackwell Science, Oxford, 31363
2005: Coming to Our Senses: Healing ourselves and the world through mindfulness, Hyperion, New York, 31364
1996: Speaking of Sadness: Depression, disconnection and the meanings of illness, Oxford University Press, New York, 31365
2006: Is it me or my meds? Living with antidepressants, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 31389
2000: The dying process, Routledge, London, 31366
0: Humanism of the other, 31367
2001: The Problem of Pain, Harper, San Francisco, 31368
2000: The Nazi doctors, Basic Books, [New York], 31369
2004: Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic guide to life, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 31390
2010: Obedience to Authority: An experimental view, New Edition, Pinter & Martin, London, 31370
1998: Illness and Culture in the Postmodern Age, University of California Press, Berkeley, 31391
2010: Bodies, Profile, London, 31392
0: Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness, Well-Being - And How to Achieve Them., 31371
2000: Handbook of Hope, Academic Press, San Diego, 31372
1995: Chronic Illness: From experience to policy, Indiana Press, Bloomington,

Other Resources

None