Sources of Suffering

This concise and well-written book deals with six important roots of human anguish. It divides the six areas into those primarily affecting the individual and those primarily affecting others around him. Among the former are fear, greed, and guilt. Among the latter are deception, betrayal, and revenge. The book deals with each realm from descriptive, psychodynamic, sociocultural, and clinical perspectives. It provides ample literary examples and vignettes from psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. The aim is to help the readers enhance their empathy with these complex human experiences and to become more adept in helping their patients renounce or reduce their suffering.

Salman Akhtar, MD, was born in India and completed his medical and psychiatric education there. Upon arriving in the USA in 1973, he repeated his psychiatric training at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and then obtained psychoanalytic training from the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. Currently, he is Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has authored, edited or co-edited more than 300 publications including books on psychiatry and psychoanalysis and several collections of poetry. He is also a Scholar-in-Residence at the Inter-Act Theatre Company in Philadelphia. Salman Akhtar received the Sigourney Award in 2012.