BackgroundThis article aims to contribute to a better conceptualization of pain and suffering by providing non-essential and non-naturalistic definitions of both phenomena. Contributions of classical evidence-based medicine, the humanistic turn in medicine, as well as the phenomenology and narrative theories of suffering and pain, together with certain conceptions of the person beyond them (the mind-body dichotomy, Cassel’s idea of persons as “intact beings”) are critically discussed with such purpose.MethodsA philosophical methodology is used, based on the review of existent literature on the topic and the argumentation in favor of what are found as better definitions of suffering and pain.ResultsPain can be described in neurological terms but cognitive awareness, interpretation, behavioral dispositions, as well as cultural and educational factors have a decisive influence on pain perception. Suffering is proposed to be defined as an unpleasant or even anguishing experience, severely affecting a person at a psychophysical and existential level. Pain and suffering are considered unpleasant. However, the provided definitions neither include the idea that pain and suffering can attack and even destroy the self nor the idea that they can constructively expand the self; both perspectives can b e equally useful for managing pain and suffering, but they are not defining features of the same. Including the existential dimension in the definition of suffering highlights the relevance of suffering in life and its effect on one’s own attachment to the world (including personal management, or the cultural and social influences which shape it). An understanding of pain and suffering life experiences is proposed, meaning that they are considered aspects of a person’s life, and the self is the ever-changing sum of these (and other) experiences.ConclusionsThe provided definitions will be useful to the identification of pain and suffering, to the discussion of how to relieve them, and to a better understanding of how they are expressed and experienced. They lay the groundwork for further research in all these areas, with the twofold aim of a) avoiding epistemological mistakes and moral injustices, and b) highlighting the limitations of medicine in the treatment of suffering and pain.

In this article, I propose a philosophical interpretation of Teresa of Avila's The Book of Her Life as a point of departure for a consideration of the relationship between subjectivity and narrativity. The Book of Her Life reveals a tension between self-affirmation and humility, between Teresa's attachment to the world and the detachment from the world as required by the ascetic path she chose to undertake; between her strong sense of self and her drive to renounce her own will. The ways in which Teresa resolves such tensions reveal a particular conception of the self as something one can shape by using ascetic techniques like ascetic humility, by practising rhetorical humility intended to create a public reputation, by engaging in public self-affirmation meant to promote one's way of life (exemplarity), and by transforming the renunciation of one's will into an acceptance of God's will, which results in a consolidation of Teresa's charisma and self-confidence.

Teresa of Avila's desire for suffering cannot be interpreted as the mere passive assumption of a feminine sacrificial role. On the contrary, Teresa was able to transform her suffering into the incarnated performance of her relationship with God: By desiring suffering and by understanding it and her ability to confront it as proof of divine love, she was able to reinforce her self‐confidence and strength. This article discusses Teresa of Avila's experience and interpretation of suffering in the context of the female ascetic‐mystic Christian tradition. It criticizes Teresa's positive conceptualization of suffering but examines in depth the potential of her ability to actively manage and control it. Although Teresa was able to affirm her personality through ascetic practices such as self‐humiliation and mortification, the general applicability of such practices to the management of suffering is fraught since they leave the suffering individual in a vulnerable position. Although Teresa of Avila finds fulfillment and, paradoxically, self‐actualization through self‐denial and the surrender of her will, such practices entail the substantial risk of total self‐annihilation.

This article offers a criticism of the generalized idea that contemporary Western Society denies and hides death and the set of moral recommendations derived from it. The death-denying and death-hiding hypotheses have been proposed in order to explain the changes in the way of facing death after the consolidation of modern medicine. After explaining both hypotheses, I situate them historically in the context of the origins of bioethics and the criticism against techno-science. Afterward, it is offered a criticism of the assumptions used to justify them. As an alternative to both hypotheses, it is proposed that modern Western Society has created its own way of facing death, namely a techno-scientific approach with particular consequences for the decision-making processes at the end of life. The logical connection established between the hypotheses and the set of moral recommendations is consequently reexamined, finally arguing for a situated approach to end-of-life dilemmas and decisions.