This book examines the phenomenon of physician-authors. Focusing on the books that contemporary doctors write--the stories that they tell--with contributors critically engaging their work. A selection of original chapters from leading scholars in medical and health humanities analyze the literary output of doctors, including Oliver Sacks, Danielle Ofri, Atul Gawande, Louise Aronson, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Abraham Verghese. Discussing issues of moral meaning in the works of contemporary doctor-writers, from memoir to poetry, this collection reflects some of the diversity of medicine today. A key reference for all students and scholars of medical and health humanities, the book will be especially useful for those interested in the relationship between literature and practising medicine.

This book examines the phenomenon of physician-authors. Focusing on the books that contemporary doctors write--the stories that they tell--with contributors critically engaging their work. A selection of original chapters from leading scholars in medical and health humanities analyze the literary output of doctors, including Oliver Sacks, Danielle Ofri, Atul Gawande, Louise Aronson, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Abraham Verghese. Discussing issues of moral meaning in the works of contemporary doctor-writers, from memoir to poetry, this collection reflects some of the diversity of medicine today. A key reference for all students and scholars of medical and health humanities, the book will be especially useful for those interested in the relationship between literature and practising medicine.

This Element is a survey of the field of pathographies of mental illness. It explores classic texts in the field as well as other selected contemporary memoirs. In doing so, the reader is introduced to psychiatric information about various mental illnesses through a narrative lens, emphasizing experience. Because clinical research is evidenced-based and aims to produce generalizable knowledge (i.e., trends), the reading of pathographies can complement these findings with practical experiential insights. By pairing psychiatric information with pathographies, certain personal themes become apparent that are different from the empirical trends identified by scientific and medical researchers. Based on the survey presented here, this Element identifies seven such themes, laying the foundation for future research, inquiry, practice, and policy.

Today, diversity of gender and sexuality is beginning to be recognized and celebrated, even while many religious denominations still resist these cultural changes. The Gift of Sublimation offers pastoral interpretations of these social shifts in the light of psychological principles, and argues that there is, historically, not only one view of masculinity but multiple conceptions. This discussion covers topics as diverse as the moral disapproval of masturbation; the efforts of some churches to convince homosexual men to adopt a heterosexual orientation; the dynamics of male envy of female longevity; the homosexual tendencies of King James I of England and VI of Scotland; and biblical portraits of God's body, gender, and sexuality. Nathan Carlin and Donald Capps make special use of the psychoanalytic concept of sublimation: the redirection of sexual desires that are considered unacceptable or unworthy towards interests and aspirations that are considered acceptable and worthy. While the use of psychoanalytic hermeneutics here is likely to raise various red flags for potential religious readers, especially for those who have been informed that Sigmund Freud was hostile towards religion, this book presents a rather different view, focussing on religious sublimation.

Description: Limbo has traditionally been viewed as a place between heaven, on the one hand, and purgatory and hell, on the other, to which the patriarchs, who lived under the old law, and babies who died before being baptized into the Christian faith have been consigned. Like purgatory, it is a dark place but not deprived of grace. Now that the Roman Catholic Church has declared that limbo is not an official church teaching, the idea of limbo has been freed from ecclesiastical constraints and available for reflection on the human condition on this side of the grave. Living in Limbo by Donald Capps and Nathan Carlin focuses on the acute limbo situations that are an integral part of human life, including the vicissitudes of growing up, of forming committed relationships, of finding employment and staying employed, of undergoing life-threatening illnesses, and of experiencing dislocation and doubt. Using cases and examples of real-life persons, the book identifies the forms of distress likely to occur throughout the duration of the limbo experience, and it also identifies the internal and external resources that individuals draw upon as they cope with the stresses and uncertainties of living in limbo. Drawing on the traditional view, especially reflected in Christian art, that Christ descends into limbo to comfort and liberate its occupants, Living in Limbo comes down on the side of hope versus despair. In reading about other limbo dwellers, readers will meet themselves-or someone they love and care about-and will be encouraged by the very fact that they are not alone. Although it is not a pleasant place to be, limbo is not a place of solitary confinement, and one derives strength and resilience from the presence of the others. Endorsements: ""In this stimulating work we are invited to look at the margins of our lives for those disorienting experiences that often remain unexplored. By identifying common limbo experiences and their core elements the authors assist us in navigating a dimension of life that is very often neglected. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a concrete understanding of these complex life experiences."" --Phil C. Zylla Academic Dean and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology McMaster Divinity College ""With a trove of compelling and vivid narratives of lived experience, Donald Capps and Nathan Carlin illustrate quite powerfully the possibility of cultivating a spirit of hopefulness and resilience even when our lives are most acutely in a state of confusion and disorientation. Through the creative application of the resources of the Christian faith, this book effectively addresses, with compassion and humor and wisdom, the many different states of 'limbo' familiar to all of us."" --Kirk A. Bingaman Assistant Professor and Director of Pastoral Care and Counseling Fordham University ""This book breathes new psychological and religious life into the ancient theological doctrine of 'Limbo, ' recently disowned by the Catholic Church. Readers will find new sources of hope, insight, and solidarity in the limbo situations of people struggling to find their way along this journey we call life."" --Thomas R. Cole McGovern Chair in Medical Humanities University of Texas--Houston Health Science Center Medical School About the Contributor(s): Donald Capps is Professor of Pastoral Psychology (Emeritus) and Adjunct Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of The Child's Song (1995), Agents of Hope (2001), Fragile Connections (2005), A Time to Laugh (2005), Jesus the Village Psychiatrist (2008), and The Decades of Life (2008). Nathan Carlin is Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. He has coauthored many articles with Donald Capps.

It is often said that bioethics emerged from theology in the 1960s, and that since then it has grown into a secular enterprise, yielding to other disciplines and professions such as philosophy and law. During the 1970s and 1980s, a kind of secularism in biomedicine and related areas was encouraged by the need for a neutral language that could provide common ground for guiding clinical practice and research protocols. Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, in their pivotal The Principles of Biomedical Ethics, achieved this neutrality through an approach that came to be known as "principlist bioethics." In Pastoral Aesthetics, Nathan Carlin critically engages Beauchamp and Childress by revisiting the role of religion in bioethics and argues that pastoral theologians can enrich moral imagination in bioethics by cultivating an aesthetic sensibility that is theologically-informed, psychologically-sophisticated, therapeutically-oriented, and experientially-grounded. To achieve these ends, Carlin employs Paul Tillich's method of correlation by positioning four principles of bioethics with four images of pastoral care, drawing on a range of sources, including painting, fiction, memoir, poetry, journalism, cultural studies, clinical journals, classic cases in bioethics, and original pastoral care conversations. What emerges is a form of interdisciplinary inquiry that will be of special interest to bioethicists, theologians, and chaplains.