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No doubt about it: The Psychoanalysis of Overcoming Suffering is emblematic of Paul Marcus's erudition. As this book is about psychoanalysis, the author begins with a reference to Freud, who believed that suffering is an ever-present constituent of life and that its challenges are a vehicle for growth and integration, its pain the
vehicle for individuation and the ability to recognize the “other”—the object—as separate.
From there Marcus springs back to Aeschylus, other ancient philosophers, and the Axial Age in general (800 bce-200 bce). It was a time of creativity in diverse parts of the world, from China to Palestine to Greece, a time when philosophers and prophets conceived of humanness at its best and worst. What mattered then was whether one's actions in the real world were in accordance with ethical conduct. According to Marcus, Freud may be a modern example of the Axial perspective in the sense that he engaged in the “otherworldliness” (p. 6) of the unconscious in the process of overcoming egoism and narcissism to achieve love and respect for others. Thus, Marcus thinks of psychoanalysis as the heir of that age, a “Jewish Humanism” at its best, “a form of life, a resource for … [appropriating] the life- and identity-defining narrative” (p. 7). And as such, psychoanalysis aims to forge a transcendence of suffering in patients and to help them blossom.
Having clarified the difference between pain (physical) and suffering (mental), Marcus devotes one detailed and documented chapter to each of six types of suffering: love, faith, mental anguish, age, work, and the suffering of the psychoanalyst. While every chapter requires attentive reading, this review will summarize some major points in each. These ideas are, for the most part, not coherently and concisely presented in the text as Marcus's own; rather they are presentations of many authors whose ideas Marcus seems to esteem, and occasionally those of differing opinions.
In this fashion, the chapter on love str